


Shadows of Azoth

by M_Moonshade



Series: Well Met in Knight Vale [3]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-02-11 12:15:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 46,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2067807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_Moonshade/pseuds/M_Moonshade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos didn't just break the rules of magic-- he shattered them. Now the Alchemist, the Voice of Night Vale, and the Eternal Scout must deal with the consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which our heroes can feel the earth move

**Author's Note:**

> I've gotten such a wonderful response to Knight Vale so far, I just had to continue-- and after the earthquakes that featured in yesterday's episode, I couldn't resist. 
> 
> I've gotten a tremendous amount of help from DangerSocks, EuleVix and Kya, who are all absolutely amazing idea-bouncers and beta-editors.
> 
> Note: Kya would like me to inform you all that I've been writing this fic for a couple of weeks now, and that the earthquakes are not, in fact, inspired by the events of Episode 51 (Rumbling). The earthquakes were a reference to the ones in episode 1 (Pilot), which were already mentioned once during The Stone That Burns. Kya finds it very important that I make this distinction, and I dare not displease her.

A low rumble.

That was all the warning Cecil got before the floor pitched under his feet. Furniture toppled over and trophies crashed down from the walls. The stones of the palace groaned under the strain, but they had too much magic keeping them in place. An earthquake wouldn’t bring the palace down.

Cecil, on the other hand, had no such protections. He tried to right himself, overcompensated, and then the ground gave another violent buck that threw him face-first into something very solid.

Very solid indeed, but not stone.

A pair of strong arms wrapped around him, protective and intimate. Large hands settled against his back and eased him back onto his feet.

“Are you all right, Cecil?”

Cecil nodded, but he refused to remove his face from Earl’s chest. That would mean Earl could see how red his cheeks had become. And that would be…

Something. Cecil still hadn’t decided what.

“Are you sure?” the Eternal Scout pressed.

“Fine. Really.” Cecil finally dragged himself upright, though he braced himself against Earl’s biceps for support.

They were really very nice biceps.

“That was… er… a very timely rescue.”

Earl shrugged. “It helps not having to deal with doors. That sort of thing makes travel go much faster.”

“Right.” It had been more than a month, and Cecil was still having trouble adjusting to Earl spontaneously appearing at his side from across the kingdom. He was no longer Night Vale’s omniscient guardian, nor was he entirely human anymore, either. He was something in between.

He was more than Cecil had ever dared hope for.

“Cecil,” Earl chided with a fond smile. “The earthquake’s over.”

“Is it?” True enough, the ground had stopped trying to knock him down, but it still felt like it was pitching from side to side. He let go of Earl and tried to stand on his own, but he’d misjudged himself. Earl caught him before he toppled over again.

“Cecil?” The warm affection had drained out of Earl’s voice, leaving only concern. “What was that? Are you all right?”

“Fine, really,” Cecil said quickly. “Just a bit dizzy, that’s all.” Cecil held his head high, waiting for his sense of balance to catch on.

Earl didn’t seem convinced. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

Oh, that’s where the floor was. Good. Cecil straightened. So long as he didn’t let himself tilt more than a few degrees in any direction, he was fine. But then Earl touched his face, and it felt like an array of ball bearings was rolling in the direction of the sudden change.

“Maybe you should see a physician?” Earl suggested, and the close softness of his voice did absolutely nothing to clear Cecil’s head.

“Already did that,” Cecil said with a patient smile. He'd had this conversation a few times already. “Teddy Williams looked me over, and he says it’s just vertigo. Nothing to worry about. I just need to lie down for a few minutes and I’ll be fine. Really.”

"So bed, then?" Earl wrapped an arm around Cecil’s waist. “Can you walk there, or will you need me to carry you?” There was something sardonic about the question, but Earl wasn’t entirely kidding.

When Cecil had Spoken Earl back into corporeality, he’d called him the strongest person Cecil knew. The things was, Cecil knew a lot of people. Back when he’d still hosted the tournament every summer, contestants would travel from far and wide for the chance to win a wish, and plenty of them were almost ridiculously strong.

And now Earl was stronger than any of them.

That was the thing about Cecil’s Voice: it didn’t always work the way he wanted it to, especially if he wasn’t careful.

“I think I’ll be fine,” Cecil said, though he allowed himself to lean against Earl just the same.

“How long has it been since you started feeling dizzy?” Earl asked. He sounded mildly curious, but Cecil recognized a loaded question when he heard one.

“A while,” he said evasively.

“If Teddy can’t figure it out, then maybe you should talk to one of those mages about it,” Earl said. “They seem to know their way around magic. Carlos figured out those headaches of yours.”

“Yeah.” Cecil flashed an unconcerned smile. “I’ll look into it.”

He knew the exact instant the vertigo had first hit him: at the same moment that the first earthquake had knocked him off his feet, just seconds before he’d found he’d found Earl’s statue in ruins and Carlos dead at its base.

He couldn’t shake his head to clear it of the image-- that would just make the whole world spin all over again, and he was having enough trouble walking as it was.

Instead, he turned his attention to his surroundings. Servants rushed about, cleaning up fallen tapestries and smashed decor. Dana was among them, slowing in her rush to cast him a sidelong glance that was one part curious, one part encouraging, and one part concerned.  

Earl kept at Cecil’s side as they rounded a few more familiar corners, and they reached the door to Cecil’s rooms.

Earl shifted, just slightly. The stiffness of his posture became pliant. The hand around Cecil’s side relaxed some of its pressure, simply resting against him rather than leading him.

If Cecil wanted to, he could keep going, walk into his bedroom with Earl at his side, make himself dizzy for entirely more pleasant reasons. Earl would come with him, if he made the offer.

And then he’d keep coming-- Cecil would make sure of that.

“Cecil,” the Faceless Old Woman said. “You really need to do something about these earthquakes. I keep trying to redecorate the menagerie, and all this shaking keeps ruining my work. Also, the wolves are loose.”

Cecil pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Earl gave him a sympathetic glance. “News from the Faceless Old Woman?”

Cecil nodded.

“Oh, and a sinkhole’s opened up behind Teddy Williams’ house,” she added.

“She says Teddy Williams has a sinkhole behind his house,” he repeated to Earl. “It seems like the kind of thing you’d enjoy investigating.”

“Thank you for letting me know.” Earl said, without hint of disappointment. “I’ll be sure to take a look. Will you be needing anything?”

_Yes. You. I need you. Forget about rocks and caves and come to bed with me._

“Just a bit of rest. I hope you have fun.” And Cecil stepped out of Earl’s arms and into his room, shutting the door between them.

* * *

 

The stone ceiling crowded tighter overhead. Earl’s attention flitted endlessly between the water-worn path before him and the enclosing walls on either side and the smooth rock face above that crept lower with every step he took.

His foot hit a sudden crevice under the chilly water, and he stumbled forward. He caught himself before he hit the wall, but that didn’t spare his head from striking the ceiling with a loud crack that echoed through the cavern.

“Shit!” he hissed into the darkness, because it hurt and because he could and because there was nobody around to hear him.

This had all been so much easier before.

A month ago he could have just widened his focus and observed the cavern, and he would have known every chamber and path in the stone. But a month ago, he had no reason to do so. He’d had no body, and so he’d had no reason to worry about the stone labyrinths inside Radon Canyon, and even if he’d felt so inclined, he’d had no way of communicating his finds to anybody. Exploring had seemed a bit pointless at the time.

A lot of things had seemed pointless.

That’s what having a body meant: suddenly there were obstacles to overcome, people to talk to, time to waste. The world was full of possibilities and triumphs and failures and hopes and disappointments. Without a body to limit one’s awareness, things simply were, devoid of illusion or purpose or meaning.

But being incorporeal certainly came with fewer headaches.

Like trying to navigate the enigma that was Cecil. He could practically taste the desire coming off the king, but Cecil refused to make a move. And maybe that was left over from before,  when Earl had been so adamant about not pursuing a relationship, but things had changed since then.  He wasn't an ordinary soldier anymore.  There were no rules of decorum for the semi-corporeal guardian of the kingdom-- and he highly doubted anyone would fault him or Cecil from pursuing this.

Except maybe Carlos. But he'd had his chance-- it was his loss if he didn't do anything with it.  

He rubbed at the sore spot on the his forehead and pressed on, sloshing through the knee-high water.

The passage cut a sharp corner, and the flow of water seeped through holes too small for a human body to pass through, but he spotted another crevice: higher, and to the left. He marked the passageway on his map with a bit of colored wax and examined the tunnel.

It was small to start with, but it turned abruptly and jutted off in another direction. Maybe it would open into a wider chamber later on.

One could only hope.

He stowed his map in his uniform pack and wrapped it around one ankle, then lowered himself to his stomach. The crevice pressed low overhead; he barely had enough room to get any leverage under his knees. Loose pebbles scraped his kneecaps, and his hands sunk deep into the mud in a nearly futile attempt at finding purchase. He crawled like that for what felt like hours, creeping forward a few inches at a time, the stone pressing in on him from every side. He could no longer hear the faint trickle of water-- only the echoed scrape of his own body through mud and stone, and his own heavy breathing. The leather strap dug into his ankle; his pack was waterlogged and heavy with mud. He must have kicked it open at some point during the crawl. Most of the equipment inside would be nearly unusable.

He kept crawling, and tried to expand his focus as much as this new body would allow. How long had he been going? A hundred yards? No, more than that. He could feel the faint resonance of his own presence echoing off the cave walls. Two, three hundred? Maybe. This passage had to open soon. It couldn’t just keep on going like this.

He twisted his whole body to make it around another sharp turn, and he blinked through a fringe of mud-caked hair at a divergence. A fork in the muddy path, where an underground stream had once been formed by its tributaries.

Unfortunately, each of the tributaries looked to be about as wide as his forearm-- mere cracks in the stone.

It was a dead end.

His head dropped forward, mud oozing across his face as his brow hit the cave floor.

“Fuck,” he muttered into the mud.

There wasn’t any room to turn around-- if he wanted to get out, he’d have to crawl backwards. On his belly. Pushing his waterlogged pack in front of him the entire way.

He sighed. “I think I’ll pass.”

And with a sound like a faint whisper of wind, he vanished.

It wasn’t like before-- immortal, eternal, fettered to his purpose rather than time or space. Now he was unbound, a roving spirit moving through stone and water as easily as through air. He extended his senses as far in every direction as he could reach, taking in as much as he could. To the right: a cavern with a wide chasm. That looked about right. He slid through the stone and glided into the empty space. When his feet touched down-- solid again-- he was dry and free of mud, as unsullied as the day he’d been made the Eternal Scout. The pack was also left behind, but that was no real loss. It wasn’t like anything in there was worth salvaging, anyway. He’d be fine, as long as he kept track of his route back outside.

But as he followed the passage, it ended in another dead end.

“Okay, fine,” he said to the empty chamber. “Maybe I took a wrong turn.” He became intangible and tried again.

Another dead end.

Another.

Another.

“Okay. So this might just be a problem.”

* * *

 

“You sure this is right?” Rochelle asked, squinting at the blueprints again.

“Ask Lanre,” Carlos said. “They’re his designs.” Most of his attention was focused on keeping the borrowed table saw from snuffling around the lab. John Peters had been kind enough to let the team borrow it during their foray into carpentry, but he’d neglected to mention how curious and energetic his beloved pet could be. Carlos had already gone through eight leashes, each one sliced clean through by the table saw’s wicked blade.

The others had collectively decided that, since Carlos couldn’t be killed, he would get to be in charge of wrangling the dog while the rest of the team worked elsewhere. It was a rational choice, but Carlos couldn’t help but wonder if there was an element of vengeance behind it.

Rochelle held the four planks of wood intended as table legs in her arms while Gretchen and Malai applied clamps to keep them together.

“So. Carlos,” Gretchen said, tightening her clamp with perhaps unnecessary force. “I notice you’ve been stopping by the palace a lot lately.”

“Have I?” Carlos had gone… maybe once a week? Twice? Was that a lot?

“It’s good to see you out of the lab and socializing,” Rochelle said helpfully. Gretchen shot her a dirty look.

This again. “They’re really not social calls,” Carlos said. “Night Vale was just at war with my family, remember? That sort of thing leaves a lot of loose ends that need to be tied, and it’s important for me to know where everyone stands. It’s not like I’m going there for personal reasons.”

Gretchen and Malai exchanged knowing glances. “Right.”

Carlos very badly wanted to tell them to drop it, but his team hadn’t exactly forgiven him for the way he’d treated them over the past several months. He didn’t want to make things any worse by snapping at them again.

“It’s not,” he said, trying very hard to be earnest and not irritated. “Whatever I used to have with the king, it’s gone. I don’t remember it, and there’s no point in trying to bring it back. And besides, he’s currently attached.”

“You’re still interested,” Gretchen said.

“He’s attractive and I have a preference,” Carlos said. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Funny,” Gretchen said dryly. “Because the last time you said that, you apparently needed your memories erased to get over him. Excuse me if I don’t want to see a repeat performance of that disaster.”

“Past performance is not a predictor of future results,” Carlos said.

“Are those table legs all clamped up?” Rochelle asked. “I think we’re about ready to start cutting. Carlos, can you get the table saw ready?”

Carlos flashed her a grateful look and turned his attention to the table saw, which was currently snuffling at his feet.

“Yeah. Right here,” Carlos said. He coaxed and cooed at the table saw while the others brought their respective armfuls of lumber to its whirling blade.

The situation with Cecil was… complicated. Being in the same room with him made Carlos’ chest ache and his stomach get all fluttery. It made him feel smart and important and worthwhile and wonderful. He wanted so badly-- almost irrationally-- to make Cecil happy, to see him smile, to hear him laugh.

And Cecil looked so much happier these days than when Carlos had first seen him. Everything about him was bright and beautiful and lively and perfect… all because he had Earl Harlan back.

And Carlos had helped that happen. Which was great.

It really was. It was fantastic.

And if Carlos felt a pang of longing every time he looked at them… well, that was a minor thing, really. Barely worth thinking about.

He was sure he’d get over it soon.

* * *

 

It was well past midnight by the time Earl got back to the palace. The servants were asleep, the Faceless Old Woman was lazily rearranging the archives, and even the Sheriff’s Secret Police drowsed at their stations. Only the palace guards remained active, marching through the labyrinthine halls in their endless patrols, illuminated by the lights that spiraled above the gardens.

Earl moved past them like a ghost, gliding soundlessly through doors and walls to his most typical haunt.

Cecil was already in bed, though he looked far from restful. The blankets were kicked into a tangle around his legs, and he kept tossing and turning, whimpering and moaning like he was in pain.

Earl became tangible as he reached for the king’s hand. Cecil’s skin was cool and clammy, but his fingers instantly closed around Earl’s touch.

“It’s all right, Cecil.” Earl unknotted the blanket and pulled it up to Cecil’s chin. “I’m right here. You’re all right.”  

Cecil’s eyelids fluttered. “Hmmm...Earl?” A small, sleepy smile warmed his face. “Yer here.”

“That’s right,” Earl said gently, smoothing Cecil’s hair. “Go back to sleep.”

Cecil hummed again and pulled Earl’s hand to rest against his cheek.

Earl bit his lip. “Maybe you should let me go.”

“Then you’ll leave,” Cecil slurred. “Wanna keep you.”

“Cecil.” Earl didn’t want to grab his hand away. Cecil was still on the edge of sleep; that kind of motion would wake him up entirely.

The king patted the mattress beside him. “Stay.”

_I shouldn’t. I really shouldn’t._

But that didn’t stop Earl from crawling into bed beside him. He’d barely laid down before Cecil nuzzled into his warmth, and Earl wrapped his free arm around the king’s waist.

He’d already debated the morality of this and come up empty-handed. The situation was perfectly chaste, but it was still entirely too intimate to be appropriate; Cecil had asked him to stay, but a mumbled plea from a half-asleep man hardly counted as consent; Earl was doing this for Cecil’s sake, but he knew there was something very wrong with the whole situation. If he had an ounce of courage he’d stay till morning and face Cecil once he actually woke.

But he wouldn’t. He never did. And as far as he knew, Cecil was none the wiser.

One of these nights, Cecil wouldn’t need Earl to keep the nightmares away. Maybe then Earl wouldn’t feel the need to watch over him this way. Maybe he would even stop haunting Cecil’s rooms like this.

Or maybe Cecil would finally invite him in when he was conscious.

 


	2. In which there are caverns and conversations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, huge thanks to EuleVix, DangerSocks and Kya for their ideas and edits.

Before Carlos and his team had arrived in Night Vale, their lab had been a workshop. Technically it still was one, though most tools of the more physical arts of craftsmanship had been replaced with more delicate, esoteric instruments.

At least, that used to be the case.

The team’s regular equipment-- most of what had survived, anyway-- was wrapped in cloth and packed in crates, safely tucked away in places where they couldn’t be smashed into a thousand pieces by Night Vale’s sudden plague of earthquakes. These days the lab looked more like its original incarnation. Flecks of sawdust floated through the air; bent nails and bits of scrap wood littered the floor; hammers and saws hung from the walls and ceiling alongside stuffed alligators and garlands of sage and garlic. The table saw, thank the Smiling God, had been safely returned to John Peters, but the team was rapidly running out of lumber, and they weren’t getting any closer to inventing earthquake-proof tables so they could continue their research.

Part of that was, admittedly, Carlos’ fault.

And, after nearly a month of trial and error, it became apparent exactly why Carlos had dedicated his life to pursuing alchemy and not carpentry. He had more splinters than he knew what to do with, blisters from that damned hammer, and the table he’d constructed may or may not have extended into five dimensions.

So when a knock sounded at the door of their lab, Carlos wasn’t exactly offended when the rest of his team collectively shoved him outside to answer it.

He might have been a bit more enthusiastic if the man standing on the other side of the door hadn’t been the Eternal Scout.

It wasn’t that he disliked Earl Harlan-- but Earl didn’t exactly seem to like him all that much, either.

To be fair, Carlos hadn’t exactly given him all that many reasons to try getting along. Between the war Carlos had been instrumental in starting... accidentally stripping Earl of most of his powers as the Eternal Scout... triggering the earthquakes that had been shaking Night Vale for the past month... briefly-almost-maybe-kind-of getting into a relationship with Cecil…

Honestly, Carlos was surprised Earl hadn’t actually tried to kill him yet.

Earl quirked an eyebrow as Gretchen shoved Carlos outside and slammed the door behind him. “Were you in the middle of something just now?”

“Not anymore,” Carlos said. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“That depends,” Earl said evenly. “How much do you know about geology?”

“Enough to get by,” Carlos said. “But my area of expertise tends more toward mineralogy. Have you tried talking to Simone Rigadaeau?”

“She’s the first person I went to,” Earl said. “She gave me all the preliminary information I could handle, but she’s not comfortable going with me. Something about rabbits.”

As a man of science, Carlos couldn’t exactly argue with her about the rabbits. They were never what they seemed to be, after all. But that wasn’t the point. “Unexplored caverns?”

“Apparently there’s a network of them under Night Vale,” Earl said. “We’ve been spotting openings in Radon Canyon all month, and the last big earthquake just opened up a sinkhole near Teddy Williams’ place. I’ll need help investigating--”

“Carlos volunteers,” Gretchen shouted through the window, between bursts of hammering.  

“I-- sure, I guess,” Carlos said, stumbling over his own tongue. “But I’d probably just slow you down, right? I mean, you can do that…” He waved his hand vaguely. “That disappearing thing. I’m sure that’s much better suited for exploration.”

“I’ve already been down there, and I kept getting turned around,” Earl said. “‘This disappearing thing’ doesn’t exactly make it easy to retrace your steps.”

“He volunteers!” Gretchen shouted again.

Earl raised an eyebrow. “You can say no if you don’t want to. You do realize that, right?”

Carlos might actually have taken him up on that, except Dave had chosen that moment to lean out the window and chuck a bag full of supplies at Carlos’ head, and Rochelle leaned out a few moments later to pelt him with witchlights.

Carlos sighed. “Which way to the cave?”

* * *

 

“So what was that all about?” Earl asked once they’d cleared the debris at the entrance of the sinkhole. “With your team?”

He’d been kind enough to stick to professional subjects on the way here-- mostly a rundown of his last excursion into the cavern, along with all the relevant information he’d collected from Simone. Carlos should have known it was too good to last.

“I gave them a pretty rough time for the past few months,” Carlos said with a sigh. “I’m still clawing my way back into their good graces.”

“That sounds pleasant-- watch your foot there.” Earl demonstrated, carefully stepping into a wide puddle. The water looked like it couldn’t have been more than a few inches deep, but it swallowed Earl’s leg up to the knee.

“Thanks,” Carlos said. “And it’s not like they’re being unfair about it or any-- shit, that’s cold!” He stumbled back, immediately yanking his foot out of the frigid water. He knew caverns were supposed to be cooler than the surface, but this was ridiculous.

“It’s going to get colder as we go deeper in,” Earl said. “Think you can manage?”

The thought didn’t exactly leave Carlos jumping for joy. But Earl was still standing there, knee-deep in the icy pool, acting like absolutely nothing was wrong. Turning back now would be humiliating. And it wasn’t like a bit of cold was going to kill him or anything.

“I’m fine,” he said.

And surprisingly, he was. After the initial shock, he adjusted to the temperature. After a few dozen yards they passed beyond the reach of natural light. At first it faded into a dim twilight, and a few steps later it became utter blackness, illuminated only by a faint, ghostly aura that clung to Earl. In ordinary darkness it might have looked like he was standing in a patch of moonlight, but in the absolute void of the cavern, he literally glowed, so brilliant that droplets of water clinging to the ceiling caught the light and refracted it back like starlight.

Carlos pulled out one of the witchlights Malai had thrown at him, and it erupted into a ball of heatless flame in his hands. He had to keep it out of his line of sight to preserve what little night vision he had, but as soon as he learned to maneuver with it, he was able to look at the cave in earnest. The stone folded overhead like curtains, frothed like frozen waterfalls, stabbed through the ceiling and floor like the fangs of some enormous beast. In places the soft gray-brown was laced with crimson iron oxide and milky calcium deposits and dark smears of ammonite.

It was gorgeous-- but also eerie.

There was no vegetation to be seen, no sound of birds or mice-- no evidence of any living thing, aside from the even slosh of their own boots through the water. He couldn’t even find fish in the crystalline pools.

“So,” Carlos said, breaking the not-quite-silence between them. “How is being… er… solid?”

Earl didn’t glance back. “Urgent.”

Carlos had no idea what to do with that. He tried again. “Do you miss it? The way things were before?”

A moment’s pause. “Sometimes.”

Carlos tried to think of some way to respond to that, when Earl spoke up again: “Stay here. I’m going to make sure the way ahead is clear.” He didn’t give Carlos a chance to argue before he vanished, leaving Carlos completely alone.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll just… stay here, then.”

The darkness swallowed up his words like an offering. He wasn’t sure Earl had even heard him.

He raised the witchlight and tried to get his bearings. To one side lay a wide, open chamber that seemed to be a dead end. To the other side went a narrow crack-- short, but he could probably squeeze through if he tried to crawl. Judging by the divot in the mud, Earl had tried that passage once already.

Hopefully, he wouldn’t try to make Carlos follow that particular path.

That was when he heard it: a distant pulse, like faraway drums. Like marching feet. Beyond it, a higher, softer sound-- like children murmuring to one another.

“Up here.”

Carlos startled, feeling oddly like he’d been pulled out of a trance. He looked around wildly.

“I said up here,” Earl repeated. He’d materialized on the rock ledge over Carlos’ head. “Do you think you can climb it?”

Carlos raised the witchlight to examine the rock wall. “I think so.” He wrapped up the light with a bit of cord and hung it around his neck, where it clattered against his phylactery. “ Is there another path up there?”

“Yes. And it’s dry,” Earl added.

“Thank the Smiling God.” Carlos picked his way between outcroppings and ledges. “I was starting to lose the feeling in my toes.”

He’d meant it as a joke, but when Earl extended a hand to help him up the last few feet, his brow was furrowed in concern. “Do you need to stop?”

“No, I’m fine.” Carlos waved him off.

“When’s the last time you ate?” Earl pressed.

“Really, I’m fine. Now which way from-- oh.” Ahead lay another crevice, just barely big enough to crawl through. “That is… very small.”

“It doesn’t go on for too long,” Earl said. “I’ll be waiting on the other side.”

“Wait-- you’re not coming with me?” The thought of being alone again with those odd noises sent a chill down Carlos’ spine. “What if I get lost?”

“If you get lost, I’ll find you. Hell, you’re probably the one thing I can find in this cave. Besides, there’s only one spot where you could possibly change directions, and it’s a pretty sharp left. Just keep going straight and you’ll be fine.”

Carlos wanted to argue-- the whole reason he was down here in the first place was because Earl had kept getting turned around in these caves, wasn’t it?-- but he didn’t. The only alternative was going back. Carlos would have to tell his team why he was finished so soon, and Earl would have to track down less of a coward to crawl through the stone.

“All right.” He steeled himself. “Let’s see what we can do, then.”

As he settled onto his hands and knees, Earl’s faint glow disappeared from behind him. The only light came from the witchlight that dangled from his neck, and it cast long, menacing shadows across the tunnel.

Carlos crawled forward, and immediately the walls seemed to close in around him. He choked down a deep breath, too aware of the sound of his own breathing.

“How are you doing back there?” Earl’s voice filtered through the stone. Maybe he could sense Carlos’ discomfort.

“Not bad,” Carlos called back. “But then, I’ve been dead.”

“So on a scale from ‘best day of your life’ to ‘dead’, how does this rate?”

“Oh, the scale only goes up to ‘dead’? In that case, I’d give it a six.”

“What other scale do you use?” Earl asked.

“You forget: I used to live in Desert Bluffs. Back home, this would hardly count as a three.”

Dear Smiling God-- was that an echo, or did Earl actually laugh at that?

“I take it you aren’t homesick, then.”

“I miss my mother sometimes,” Carlos admitted. “And not all of my siblings were out to get me. But I like Night Vale. It’s peaceful here.”

“Peaceful?” Earl chuckled. “That may in fact be the first time I’ve heard that word used to describe this kingdom.”

“It is, though,” Carlos said. “I mean, there’s danger around every corner and there’s always new ways to get yourself killed-- but that’s true everywhere. Around here, it doesn’t feel like anybody’s actively coming to get you every minute of every day. And when people smile at you and wish you a good morning, they seem to actually mean it. That’s special.”

“Either that, or you have remarkably low standards,” Earl said, but not unkindly.

The tunnel grew tighter, and Carlos’ back scraped against the low ceiling. He dropped onto his belly, dragging himself through the passage on his elbows. It was awkward and slow, and it wasn’t long before he had to sling his phylactery and his witchlight over his shoulder to keep them from getting smothered in the mud. But he could still see-- a faint light up ahead cast long, looming shadows around him.  

“You don’t come by the palace much these days,” Earl said. The shadows shifted as he repositioned himself.

“Too much for some people,” Carlos said, scooting forward another few inches. “Is there a reason everybody tracks the frequency of my outings? Is that a Night Vale thing?”

“You used to come by more often. Practically every day, if I remember right. You used to make excuses to stop by.” Earl snorted. “They were really stupid excuses, too. And then you’d loiter in the back of the throne room like a kid who’d snuck into the kitchens before dinner.”

Carlos paused his advance. “I don’t remember any of that.”

“You did,” Earl said. “I saw you.”

Carlos’ stomach flipped unpleasantly. He’d assumed Cecil had told him all of that. The alternative, though... “You were watching me?”

Earl made a noncommittal sound, and the shadows shivered. “There was a time when I was familiar with the pulse of every living thing in Night Vale,” Earl said. “I’ve forgotten most of it, but I’ve still got a few bits and pieces.” He paused. “Are you stuck?”

“No. No, I’m coming.” Carlos forced himself to resume his crawl. “Would you rather remember, if you could?”

“I don’t think I could make sense of it if I did,” Earl said. “The scope of what I experienced was too different-- it would all just be incoherent detail. But that’s not the case for you.”

Carlos cringed. Had he really been that obvious?

“My team says that I didn’t experience anything particularly traumatic before I lost my memories-- nothing that I don’t already know about, anyway. So theoretically there would be no harm in it.” And now Carlos was rambling. Why was he rambling? “And before you get any weird ideas or anything, I realize that you and Cecil-- that you have something. I mean, of course I know-- Kevin built an entire compulsion around it. So just-- you don’t have to worry about me getting in the way or anything, okay? That’s not what this is about.” Dear Smiling God, why couldn’t he stop talking? He hadn’t talked to anybody about this-- anybody. So why couldn’t he keep his mouth shut now? “But everything that happened, that was a part of me, and now it’s just gone. And it feels wrong. And I know it’s stupid and it’s probably not even possible, but I want it back.”

Maybe if he just buried his face in the mud, the earth would swallow him whole. That would be nice right about now.

He braced himself for Earl to change the subject, or laugh at him, or remark on the awkward silence, or--

“If it was possible,” the Eternal Scout said evenly. “How would you do it?”

Carlos crawled forward another few inches. “Pardon?”

“How would you go about getting those memories back? Where would you start?”

That was not what he’d expected to hear.

All right, then.

“Er-- research, of course. I’d see if there was something written on the subject.”

“You’ve already done that,” Earl said, and Carlos swallowed. “I know you read through every document your team had ages ago, and you’ve been digging around the University since then. I take it you didn’t find anything interesting?”

“Not really,” Carlos admitted. “And the few things I did find didn’t turn out to be particularly effective.”

“But you don’t sound like you’re entirely without leads,” Earl said.

This was the point where any rational man would have ended the conversation. And here was the perfect opportunity: the tunnel’s opening caped in front of him, and he slid out into the wide passage. Earl bent to help him to his feet, bizarrely clean and dry despite all the time they’d spent wading before. Carlos, on the other hand, couldn’t tell the original color of his clothes anymore-- just that they were cold, clammy, and heavy with mud.

But Earl was looking at him expectantly, and Carlos found he liked being able to talk about it for once.

“If anyone knows how to put my memories back, it’ll be the one who took them away in the first place.”

Earl frowned. “You mean that Kevin creature.”

“It’s a lead,” Carlos said. “I never said it was a good one.”

“The last time you saw that thing, it nearly killed you.” Funny-- Earl sounded distracted. Thoughtful.

As a man whose chosen discipline frequently involved lighting things on fire or making them explode, Carlos was all too familiar with the sound of a bad idea in the making.

Of course, just because he could recognize a poor decision ahead of time didn’t mean he was going to avoid it.

“True,” he said. “But I’m a lot harder to kill these days. What’s on your mind?”

“You know where it lives,” Earl said.

“I do.”

“And you have a legitimate reason to go back,” he continued. “Nobody could argue otherwise.”

Oh yes, this had bad idea written all over it.

“You couldn’t go alone, of course,” Earl said. “Not after what happened the last time. You’d need an escort, at the very least.”

Carlos sighed. “I really don’t think the Sheriffs Secret Police is going to be listening in on us down here. You can quit hedging and just come out with it.”

For a moment, Earl looked genuinely confused.

Apparently he hadn’t even noticed he was doing it.

“You want to go with me,” Carlos prompted. “Why?”

He would have called the resulting expression ‘stony’, except that he’d already seen Earl’s face carved from granite. It had been a lot more transparent than this.

“Because the fucker tried to kill Cecil.”


	3. In which the party is split and a journey is begun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanks to Kya, DangerSocks, and EuleVix for the idea bouncing and the beta editing~

Calm.

Cecil could be calm. He could absolutely be calm. He was a king and a grown man, and he could handle a bit of… news.

Because that’s what this was. Carlos wasn’t asking for approval or permission, he was just letting Cecil know that a decision had been made.

And Cecil could handle that. He could be calm.

“You’re going back to Desert Bluffs.” You know, that one place with the homicidal royal family and the evil eyeless Oracle. The country that had just finished going to war against Night Vale.

No big deal, right?

“It’s just a visit,” Carlos repeated-- carefully, like Cecil was the one who needed to see things logically. Which he didn’t, because he was _calm_. “I won’t be gone for very long at all.”

“That’s assuming they let you come back at all,” Cecil said. _Calmly_.

“I don’t think they’re going to risk antagonizing you that way.” _Funny_ , Cecil thought. Carlos had told him the exact same thing when he’d first arrived in Night Vale-- that the Family Strex wouldn’t dare attacking the kingdom outright-- and a little more than a year later they’d declared war. But Carlos didn’t remember that conversation, so there was no point in dredging that up now. “If it makes you feel any better, I won’t be going alone.”

Cecil opened his mouth. Carlos’ team of mages were very talented, but--

“Earl’s volunteered to act as my bodyguard.”

The king’s mouth hung open like a trap with a broken spring. “Oh.”

Earl was-- well, of course he was qualified. More than qualified. He was the King’s Champion, and it would be an utter insult to his prowess to claim he would do any less than bring Carlos home in one piece, but--

But the thought of sending him away sent a spasm of ice through Cecil’s heart. The thought of them both leaving-- of losing them both in one day, just like that-- if anything should happen--

The cold splintered in his chest, branching into his fingertips.

_You could stop them. One Word, and you could keep them here. Safe. With you._

The thought might have been appealing, if it hadn’t sounded so much like Kevin.

Finally, Cecil wrenched his mouth shut. “Earl’s a very capable soldier. He’ll make sure you don’t come to any harm.” A small, weak smile pulled at his lips. “But please try to stay safe anyway, okay?”

“I will.” Carlos’ expression softened. “And we’ll be back as soon as we can. Really.”

“I believe you.”

Cecil had half a mind to say the words with his Voice.

Maybe then they’d be true.

* * *

 

“It wasn’t lying.”

“Not technically, no,” Carlos agreed-- and if Earl could have stumbled, he would have. But he was still floating beside the alchemist and his horse, incorporeal and intangible.

Though apparently not entirely inaudible.

“Why, did you change your mind?” Carlos asked. He glanced over his shoulder. The sheer walls of Radon Canyon loomed overhead, but Night Vale’s border was still within sight. They weren’t too far out to head back.

“And risk causing an international incident?” Earl shook his head, and Carlos blinked rapidly, like he’d caught the motion in the corner of his eye. If Kevin attacked Carlos and Earl killed the monster, it would simply be an unfortunate accident; if they went out with the expressed intention of killing him, it would be an assassination. “No. Better to stay quiet about it.”

He waited for Carlos to voice his own change of heart, but the alchemist said nothing. For a while,  the only sound was the rhythm of the horse's hooves on the dirt road. The quiet grated on Earl’s nerves; he’d had enough of solitude and pensive silences for one lifetime. He could feel Calros’ presence bobbing along beside him, like a signal flare on the senses. It had proven convenient way of keeping his bearings in the disorienting darkness of the cave, but now it dragged at his attention.

“So you can hear me like this?” he asked.

Carlos shrugged. “I could before.”

“That was different,” Earl said. “I was actually trying to be heard then.”

“And you’re not now?”

Earl didn’t dignify that with an answer.

“Can’t anyone else hear you?” the alchemist asked.

“Without some concerted effort on my part? No. It’s usually easier to just turn solid again.”

“Interesting.” Earl flashed a grin that nobody saw. Mission accomplished: a curious gleam lit up Carlos’ eyes. He started edging in questions with a careful politeness, but with every answer Earl gave he grew a little more bold. Soon Carlos was directing experiments, having Earl wander off into the distance and call back to him to test how far apart they could hear one another, while Carlos took studious notes in the clay tablet that he’d insisted on bringing along.

That killed a few solid hours before Carlos ran out of experiments to run and repeat (for scientific accuracy, he insisted).

“We can run some more tests when we get back to the lab,” Carlos said. “Hopefully by then we’ll be able to use our equipment again.”

“By the way--” Maybe Earl had gotten a bit too comfortable with Carlos. “You should probably take a look at Cecil, too. He’s been having some pretty heavy dizzy spells for a while now.”

Carlos’ brow furrowed in concern. “He has? How bad?”

“Bad enough that he’s already seen a physician about it. No results yet.” At Carlos’ prompting, Earl described the symptoms he’d seen: the way Cecil wobbled, the awkwardly stiff way he held himself, the way the relatively minor earthquake had completely thrown him off his feet. Carlos asked the appropriate questions-- how long had it been going on, did it look like any particular behaviors aggravated it, was it better or worse after he’d eaten, what about during his bloodstone chants, what about when he used his Voice--

“And what about sex?”

Earl went still. “What?”

“Does it get better or worse during sex? Or after?”

Earl didn’t answer.

“I know it’s intimate, but I promise, I’m not trying to pry,” Carlos said hastily. “Intercourse causes a lot of changes in the body-- relieves headaches, changes the flow of blood, so forth-- and its connection with life force has been repeatedly proven. That’s the entire reason why succubi and incubi are so dangerous, after all-- and there are some practices that suggest carefully practiced sexual activity as a replenishment of life force in certain cases. I’m an alchemist. I know these things. And I’m only asking because it’s scientifically relevant to the question.”

Earl sighed wearily. “I believe you.”

Carlos waited. And then when a full minute had passed without answer, he prompted: “So...?”

Thank the Masters that Earl was already invisible. “...I wouldn’t know.”

Carlos shrugged. “Even if he doesn’t tell you outright, it would be evident in his body language. Have you seen anything--”

“I wouldn’t know.” Earl repeated tensely.

An intelligent man might have taken the hint to end the conversation then. Clearly that didn’t fully describe Carlos the Alchemist. “Why not?”

“Because we haven’t.”

And surely this-- _this_ \-- was a good time to take a hint and drop it, but once again, Carlos prevailed: “Why not?”

“Because a lot can change over five years, all right?” Earl snapped. “Things are different than they were before.”  

Finally the nature of his questions seemed to catch up with Carlos. His eyes went round and his face flushed absolutely crimson. “Oh-- I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-- that was rude of me. I just assumed-- but I shouldn’t have-- I should just be quiet now.”

“That’s probably a good idea.”

They fell into near-silence once more, which left Earl mired in his own thoughts. He  hadn’t been exaggerating: things had changed since he’d become the Eternal Scout. He was removed from the chain of command, answering to nobody but his own conscience and the Voice of Night Vale. For the first time since he could remember, he was free. Absolutely, beautifully free. And Cecil--

The change that had come over his best friend made Earl’s stomach twist. Cecil used to be bold. Fearless. There had been a time when he’d been in the thick of every festivity his duties allowed, flirting with every handsome stranger who crossed his path, squealing over whatever cute animal his servants snuck into the palace. And maybe Earl hadn’t been the best judge, but Cecil had seemed so very happy. And sure, bad things happened in Night Vale, but its king had always been almost ludicrously resilient.

The Cecil he knew now seemed… frail. Brittle. Like one more blow could shatter him-- and it nearly had. He spoke more quietly, moved more carefully, weighed every decision like the fate of thousands depended on it.

Earl had been instrumental in that. He didn’t regret it-- he knew in ways he couldn’t fully remember anymore that he’d done what he had to do-- but that duty was finished. His new duty was to help Cecil recover. Preferably after smearing Kevin across whatever hellpit he’d crawled out of.

Perhaps, though, he should have been focusing more on his other roles-- namely, that of Carlos’ bodyguard-- because he was suddenly yanked out of his thoughts by a dozen armed men and women on horseback, appearing from behind the rocky outcroppings of the canyon walls. They were still a few hundred yards away, but they closed the distance with unnerving speed.

All of them were smiling.

“Your Highness,” said the one at their head-- an androgynous rider with unnaturally sharp teeth and what looked like bits of bone braided into their thick, dark hair. “What a pleasant surprise! What brings you to Desert Bluffs?”

Carlos glanced sideways-- at Earl? That couldn’t be right. But Earl caught the unspoken signal to hold. "My business is my own."

Earl snorted. If someone had given his patrols an answer like that, they’d have found a sword to their jugular in nothing flat. But that was the point, he supposed: it was a test, to see what they'd put up with. Earl eyed the crossbows that hung at every rider's side.

Maybe this wasn’t the best time to be testing people’s patience.

"Of course, Your Highness, " the rider said. "I'm sure anything you have to declare is meant to be strictly between yourself and Her Majesty. We wouldn't dream of prying into privileged information."

Earl positioned himself closer to Carlos. None of the riders seemed to notice. "What's he talking about?"

"I don't know," Carlos muttered without moving his lips. And then he reconsidered: "Trouble."

“We would be absolutely delighted to escort you the rest of the way,” the rider said, that eerie smile still plastered on their face. “These are dangerous times. A man of your station should hardly be out on his own.”

So they hadn’t noticed Earl. That was a relief.

“I’d rather make my own way,” Carlos said.

The rider’s grin turned sharp and cold. “I’m afraid I have to insist.”

If Earl had eyes at the moment, they would have narrowed. There were twelve riders, but they wouldn’t be expecting an assault from behind. Earl could potentially sneak around and unbuckle a few of their saddles before the rest noticed him. A bit of swordwork could unhorse a few more. At that point it would likely come down to a chase-- the remaining riders going after Carlos with Earl free to pick them off, off one by one. Not an ideal situation, but not impossible by any means.  

Earl moved closer to Carlos. “I can take care of this.”

“Wait,” Carlos muttered. And then louder: “All right, then. Lead the way.”

The rider’s grin relaxed-- more pleased than threatening. “A wise choice, Your Highness.” And they barked commands to the rest of the riders, forming a loose ring around Carlos and his horse. Earl bristled. This was the kind of escort you gave to prisoners, not royalty.

“What’s your plan?” Carlos breathed, the sound all but lost to the clopping of hooves.

“I fight off these thugs while you make a run for it.”

“If they raise an alarm, we’ll have half the country chasing after us.”

Earl glowered at the leader of the riders. “Then we don’t let them get that far.”

“How? By killing them? Do you think nobody would notice an entire patrol suddenly going missing?” He glanced at the ring of riders, but still none of them seemed to have noticed their conversation.

“Do you have a better idea?” Earl grumbled.

“I’ll figure something out,” Carlos said. “Just give me some time.”

* * *

 

There was no thin semantic line between opulence and austerity-- more like a wide, sweeping meadow, and the Family Strex had built its empire upon it. The furniture inside the palace was timeless, masterfully crafted and meticulously maintained, and the family prided itself in not having purchased new pieces in generations. Every stone of the estate had been cut to fit together perfectly, the seams so fine they were nearly invisible. In place of windows-- which could break or warp or crack-- entire columns of the stone wall had been enchanted into translucence. By day they let in a brilliant orange glow, which was refracted a thousand times over by an endless array of mirrors. By night the entire palace could be lit by a few lanterns, their glow magnified until the whole building seemed to shine like an earthly sun.

Those raised in the palace walls were nearly untouchable: there were no shadows to hide in, and the endless mirrors caught every movement in every direction. It was a fact that had saved Carlos and his siblings from countless assassination attempts in the past. But it had been more than a year since he’d set foot in the palace, and now its kaleidoscopic radiance left him blind and dizzy. He kept his eyes on the floor, following the boots of the nearest guard as they led him deeper into the estate.

Somewhere up ahead a door opened, and the light grew so bright that it made his eyes water. He forced himself to look anyway at a figure wrapped in flowing silk and glittering diamonds, on a throne of gold and alabaster and light and light and light and light.

“Hello, Mother.”

 

 


	4. In which there are labyrinths of mirrors and light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, huge thanks to DangerSocks, Kya, and EuleVix for their help, and thank you to all the artists, writers and cosplayers who let me borrow their OCs.
> 
> Note: this chapter does start moving into some dubcon territory. Those who are sensitive to such things, please proceed with caution.

Earl wasn’t sure exactly what he had expected.

Queen Salvadora Strex was an imposing woman, tall and plump, with pronounced cheekbones and long dark hair that fell in silver-streaked ringlets around her shoulders. She certainly didn’t _seem_ particularly evil.

“Oh, my darling Carlos.” Her elegant drawl filled the throne room as she crossed the space between them with perfectly-timed footsteps. Carlos didn’t resist as she pulled him into an embrace, then pulled back to kiss him on each cheek. “My dear son, look at you. You’re skin and bone-- and you’re so pale! Have you been getting any sun at all, my darling?” Her hands fluttered over him, touching his face, his hair, his hands, expertly checking him for hidden weapons while she smothered him with affection. “Have those brutes in Night Vale been keeping you in a dungeon all this time?”

“No, Mother,” Carlos said patiently. “I’ve been keeping very busy with my work.”

“Of course, of course. Oh, but I’ve been worried sick for you, my dear child. Have you eaten? Of course not, you’ve only just arrived. Vanessa! Call for a taster and a cook-- my son is half-starved!”  

The alchemist let himself be led by the hand like a child. With the other hand, he gave a slight wave: a signal.

“Are you sure?” Earl asked.

Another wave. _Go_.

“Fine. I’ll be back here in an hour. Try not to die again before then.”

Carlos’ eyes twitched like he was suppressing the urge to roll his eyes, and the faintest smile brushed his lips before he turned his attention back to his mother.

Yeah. He’d be fine.

Carlos had assured Earl that this was an opportunity. The guards who patrolled Desert Bluffs were nothing if not efficient-- meaning that their routes were perfectly timed and had almost no overlap between them. Maneuvers that precise would have to be written down somewhere. If Earl could find whatever documents recorded those movements, he’d be able to find the patterns-- and then they could move nearly anywhere in the kingdom undetected. And there was no telling what other strategic tidbits Earl could uncover if he looked long enough.

Of course, that all assumed he could find where all this information was being kept in the first place.

The throne room was open and spacious, the light and ambient brightness coming to a focal point at the throne. Beyond it, the halls were a cacophony of moving shapes and flashing lights, the images in the mirrors shifting with every move Earl made. He tried flitting down to a lower level, and then up to a higher one, but there was no difference between them. It was like being in a cave all over again, but worse. At least there, he didn’t have to suffer this assault on his senses.

But that brought the old strategy to mind. He focused his senses on Carlos, orienting himself according to the other man’s presence the same way he had in the cave. Having the other man around had been like having a private compass-- though he wasn’t about to tell Carlos that.

“All right,” he said, casting one last glance back at Carlos. “Let’s go exploring.”

* * *

 

“Do pardon your siblings’ absence,” the queen said while servants arranged a modest banquet on the table. “When they heard you were coming, the family was overcome by a sudden epidemic of wanderlust.”

“I think I can forgive them for that,” Carlos said. “Did any of them go anywhere interesting?”

“Gabriel and Andres are taking a holiday in Nulgorsk-- you know how your brothers love the sea-- and Caesar is off scouting some new talent for that club of his. Apparently there are some lovely new dances coming into fashion in Franchia, and he simply must be the first to know.”

“Naturally.” Carlos reached for a leg of lamb, and his mother stilled, looking concerned.

He pulled his hand back again, trying not to let his confusion show. Had he done something wrong?

“Laurence, dear,” his mother said. “If you would?”

Immediately the taste tester went to work, starting with a sliver of the lamb Carlos had been about to grab.

“We mustn’t let good habits lapse, my darling,” the queen chided. “That’s how accidents happen.”

“Of course,” he said absently. He still tested his food regularly, didn’t he? He didn’t use a human food tester, of course, but a few quick chemical reactions could usually detect anything particularly harmful. He tried to think back to the last time he’d made the full round of tests, though. The other day, maybe? Or a week ago? Maybe longer?

“Especially now,” his mother continued. “Bringing down three of your brothers in one day is impressive-- we haven’t had a grouping like that since your grandmother’s time. But it certainly makes you more of a target. By the way, I’m afraid Divina was a bit put out by all that business. She’d been wanting to take down Diego herself.”

“She’ll have to get over it,” Carlos said. “Besides, I’m not the one who killed him.”

“Not directly, no. But getting the king and his bodyguard to do it for you-- how romantic!” She giggled into a crystal goblet of blood-red wine. “By the way, I simply must congratulate you on that. How goes the thrilling love story, hm? I simply must know all about it.”

Carlos bought himself some time by stuffing a roll in his mouth and chewing as loudly as he could manage.

That subject was all sorts of uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure exactly how detailed the rest of his siblings got with their mother, but he wasn’t about to share any of his sexual escapades with her. Even if he had any to begin with. It wasn’t like he could explain the situation to her, either-- problems like monogamy and the person you love being with someone else didn’t exactly arouse the queen’s sympathies. She and the king were happily married and quite devoted to one another, but that didn’t mean that any of their children actually shared both parents.

Carlos swallowed the mouthful of bread and washed it down with wine (dear Smiling God, how long had it been since he’d eaten anything made of wheat?).

“It’s over,” he said at last. “King Cecil saved me out of… nostalgia, I think. Remembered affection. But we’re done.”

“Oh dear.” The queen lowered her goblet and leaned forward. “Oh, my sweet boy, what happened?”

He shrugged half-heartedly. “I don’t remember him. We knew each other for a year, and now all of that is gone. It’s hard to start over after all of that. So we just... aren’t.” He sighed.

“You don’t look very happy about that,” his mother said.

“It doesn’t matter how I feel about it. It’s just over.”

"There may be something you can do, " she said. "You know how I hate seeing you distressed."

“Honestly…” He spared her a quick glance. She looked absolutely distraught. “I was hoping to get some help from the Oracle. Kevin took those memories away. Maybe he can put them back.”

“Oh.” Her lips twisted into a delicate frown. “Are you sure there aren’t other avenues you wouldn’t rather try first, pet? Perhaps a nice picnic lunch. Maybe at a hanging.” She gasped, her eyes alight with inspiration. “Oh, I know! A masquerade ball. Your brother Luciano always was so fond of those. We can throw one in his memory-- how does that sound?”

Carlos tried very much not to cough up his wine. “No, I don’t think that’ll work, mother. In fact, I’m pretty much certain.”

“Are you?” she asked. “More’s the pity. I highly doubt you’ll get much cooperation from our Oracle anytime soon.”

“No?”

“Heavens, no. You should have seen the state of him when he returned from Night Vale last month-- he was positively cut to ribbons. He is recovering of course, darling, but it will take some time for him to heal.”

“Maybe if I could just talk to him--” Carlos started.

“Don’t do that. The Oracle’s gotten himself into quite a temper these days. I wouldn’t want you to get too close. It isn’t safe.”

Carlos frowned. “Well, I expected him to be angry--”

“Oh no, pet.” Her voice grew dark. “Not angry. He’s absolutely thrilled.”

* * *

 

These rooms seemed a bit more academic than the last few Earl had investigated. The halls themselves were still eye-woundingly bright, but the chambers that branched off on either side had more of the subdued, ambient light that made for pleasant reading. Hopefully that meant he was getting close. He knew he’d told Carlos that he’d only be gone for an hour, but he wanted something to show for his efforts. Anything.

Whoever had designed this damned architecture must have been drunk at the time. There was no rhyme or reason to this layout, no sense, not even the barest minotaurean logic.

“Nobody back in Night Vale would ever put up with such a woefully disorganized floorplan,” Earl muttered. “Cecil would never--”

Something moved up ahead, the motion reflected around the corner by a particularly large mirror.

“Earl?”

Earl became solid in an instant, but he seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. “Cecil?”

Another movement-- and now Earl could vaguely make out a head being raised. “Earl, is that you?”

Earl rushed forward, squinting against the blinding light. Cecil was up ahead. It was hard to see him clearly, but Earl could make out the telltale wobble of vertigo. The king covered his eyes, blocking out the overwhelming light.

“Cecil, are you all right?” Earl asked. “What are you doing here? You didn’t honestly try to follow us, did you?”

Cecil raised his head-- a little movement, but apparently enough to throw off his precarious balance. He stumbled forward, and Earl all but dove to catch him.

“Cecil!” He braced the king against his chest. “Cecil, please. I need you to talk to me. What’s going on?”

“Just a little dizzy spell. Nothing to worry about.” Cecil nuzzled into him. “But I’m glad I’ve got you here with me. You take such good care of me, Earl.”

Was that absolutely necessary? Earl looked around, but the mirrors showed only facets of their own reflections.

He swallowed. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

“I’m perfect. Absolutely perfect.” Cecil’s hands were flat against Earl’s chest, sliding lower with every word. A knee rose up, rubbing against Earl’s thigh. And higher. “You really do take such excellent care of me. Would you like me to return the favor?”

 _Dear Masters._ “Cecil? What are you doing?”

“That depends,” Cecil purred. “What do you want me to do to you?” That knee pushed up again, and Earl’s eyes rolled back at the glorious pressure. “Well?”

An undignified whimper slipped from Earl’s throat. He would have been mortified, if Cecil hadn’t chosen that moment to rock into him.

“I’ve been keeping you waiting entirely too long, haven’t I? But you’ve been so very patient. I think it’s high time I reward that patience, don’t you?” He crowded Earl back, a few steps at a time, until Earl stumbled into the wall. And Cecil kept pushing into him, grinding against him, tugging at Earl’s uniform and trailing open-mouthed kisses to his collarbone and up his throat and _oh_ \--

“Oh, Earl.” A flash of tongue glided along the corner of Earl’s jaw. “ _Oh, Earl_. Have you missed this as much as I have?”

Earl nodded frantically-- he was supposed to say something, to remember something, but his mind was a blank. All that mattered was having Cecil here in his arms and kissing him and _oh sweet Spire_ , he’d forgotten how amazing Cecil could _taste_.

Earl’s eyes fluttered open, just on the edge of bliss.

And froze like a bucket of cold water had been poured over him.

Cecil. His face.

_ Where were his eyes? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carlos' siblings belong to their respective creators:  
> Luciano belongs to http://zenamiarts.tumblr.com/  
> Divina belongs to http://mistress-strex.tumblr.com/  
> Diego belongs to http://videntefernandez.tumblr.com/  
> Caesar belongs to http://goddess-in-green.tumblr.com and http://papahodou.tumblr.com/, and the club he runs is a nod to their StripperVale AU  
> Gabriel belongs to http://thethespacecoyote.tumblr.com/  
> Andres belongs to http://museumofforbiddenart.tumblr.com/


	5. In which there is damage control

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally the first half/third of this chapter-- then EuleVix pointed out that the transition between the two scenes just didn't work right, Kya bashed me upside the head until I listened to her, and DangerSocks suggested some excellent ways of expanding that space.
> 
> It is on their behalf, then, that I reintroduce you all to Queen Salvadora.

Carlos' old room hadn't changed much. His bed was just as it had been, too large for his purposes but generally comfortable. The same billowing curtains hung from overhead, blocking out the light of the main halls. And the stone floor was still smooth and bare. He had inspected it all carefully, as was custom, checking each fold of the curtains for intruders, sweeping the sheets for poisoned needles, checking every crevice for potentially venomous creatures, and securing the column of locks that lined his door. He was clumsy and slow from lack of practice, but even after he’d finished, Earl was still gone. He unpacked his travel gear and inventoried it all,  and still Earl hadn't come back. He took to pacing the floor-- had something happened? Had Earl gotten lost?

And what was Carlos supposed to do about it if he had? How exactly did one go about searching for an incorporeal being in a palace of this size?

You didn't just wander through the halls calling his name. But as another hour ticked away, Carlos was getting ready to do just that, until he caught a flicker out of the corner of his eye.

"Earl!" He rounded on the spot where he hoped the Eternal Scout was standing. Earl snapped into visibility, so abruptly it seemed like he’d been summoned.

He certainly didn’t look like he could have arrived on his own power.

His clothes were pristine as always, but he was pale, his eyes wide with alarm, and he was--

Dear Smiling God, he was shaking.

A spike of panic surged through Carlos. Earl was the Eternal Scout. He was calm and collected-- he didn’t get like this.

“What is it?” Carlos asked, trying to keep his voice steady. One of them had to be calm right now. The door was locked and the room was secure; they were safe here, even if only for a little while. “Earl, what’s wrong? What did you find? Do you need to sit down?”

He reached out to help Earl into a chair. But the moment his hand landed on the Eternal Scout, Earl jolted like he’d been shocked. His eyes widened, almost panicked, until his gaze fell on Carlos’ eyes.

 _That_ certainly wasn’t ominous or anything.

“Do you need something to drink?” Carlos tried again. “Tea? I can call for something stronger.” Would that even help? Would alcohol have any effect on someone like Earl?

Earl whirled on his heel, pacing away from Carlos. The alchemist tried to follow after him, but Earl waved him away.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Fine.”

 _You don’t sound fine,_ Carlos did not say. Or maybe he did, because Earl spun to face him again.

“You said that-- that thing-- would be in a cave somewhere.”

“He is,” Carlos said. Earl glared. “He’s not?”

“He’s here. And apparently he has a-- a twisted sense of humor.”

 _Oh shit_. “Did he hurt you?” Carlos tried to get a closer look at the other man, but Earl kept pacing, staying well away from him. There were no obvious injuries, no bloody fingerprints. Earl looked immaculate, as spotless as he had after he’d waded through a cave.

Dirt just didn’t stick to him, apparently. Did injuries? And even if they did, would they be visible? After all, Carlos knew too well what Kevin could do-- what he could take from you, without leaving a mark. If Earl really was hurt, was there any way of knowing for sure?

“Earl, please. I need you to talk to me.”

“I said _I’m fine_ ,” the Scout snapped. “I’ve been trained for this sort of situation. It was just like another outbreak of valentines, and those are simple to deal with. A basic maneuver. It wouldn’t be an issue at all if he hadn’t caught me off guard.”

Carlos could sense a therapeutic rant coming on. He knew those all too well. “Of course,” he prompted.

“Hell, the last time I saw the bastard, I didn’t even have to think about it. He was attacking Cecil, so _of course_ his fucking tricks didn’t work on me, because there wasn’t anything else to think about. I knew he’d try it again, but I didn’t realize he could change his voice like that-- fuck, he sounded just like him-- I wasn’t on my guard. I didn’t expect a fucking ambush here.”

Already the rant was starting to unravel and fray. Now that the initial shock had started to wear off, Earl looked distraught.

He looked ashamed.

 _Oh shit._ “Earl--”

“For fuck’s sake-- I’m fine, okay?”

“I know you’re fine,” Carlos said softly. “I know. But Kevin-- he’s dangerous. Whatever he just did, it might be part of something bigger. So I need to know what happened. Okay?” Earl was a soldier, and there was one thing soldiers understood. “So we can figure out our strategy.”

The word worked as easily as an incantation: Earl froze, statuesque, studying Carlos with a frightening intensity. And then he let out a breath that Carlos hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“He pretended to be Cecil,” Earl said, more quietly than his previous rant. “Talked like him. Moved like him. Pretended to be hurting, so I’d get close. Started getting grabby. As soon as I realized the trick, I got out of there.” His teeth ground together. “It just… took me a while to catch on.” There it was again-- anger and shame.

“Listen, Earl…” Carlos braced himself. This could go very badly. “What happened-- it doesn’t reflect badly on you. It doesn’t. Kevin knows how to get in your head. Under your skin. He takes the things you want and he uses them against you. I’ve seen it happen a lot-- he’s got half my siblings in thrall because of it.”

Earl’s brow furrowed. He turned his gaze to Carlos, his expression inscrutable. “It was your idea to come here in the first place.”

 _Oh shit oh shit oh shit._ “I know,” Carlos said quickly. Maybe if he could defuse this fast, he’d be able to escape the worst of whatever was coming. “I had no idea he was going to be here. I wasn’t trying to-- to lure you here or anything. And you don’t have to stay here-- I’m fine doing the rest of this alone.”

Earl frowned, looking confused-- finally an expression Carlos could identify. “No. I mean, you knew what he was capable of, and you wanted to come here anyway. After what he did to you.”

“Like I said.” Carlos shrugged uncomfortably. “Kevin knows what people want-- and I want my memories back. And I’m willing to do what it takes to get them.”

“Even if it means going through that again?” Earl asked.

“I don’t think it’ll come to that.” Carlos flashed a small, flickering smile. “I’ll ask him nicely, and if he refuses, I’ll ask not-so-nicely. But he will give me my memories back. I can be very persuasive if I have to be.”  

After all, you didn’t grow up in the Family Strex without picking up a few things.

“What if he’s not alone?” Earl asked. “He knows I’m here. He’ll probably have told half of Desert Bluffs by now.”

Carlos shook his head. “That’s not his style. He likes to--” Wait. Carlos threw out the metaphors that had been lurking in the next part of that sentence. Calling Kevin’s targets ‘prey’ or his act a ‘game’ was beyond insensitive, after what Earl had just been through. “He likes to do these sorts of things alone. The more people know what he’s doing, the more chances they have to get in his way.”

“We can’t count on that,” Earl said. “People can change their habits if they know it’ll benefit them. Just because he’s done it that way before doesn’t mean he’ll do it again. Especially if he knows you’re aware of his patterns.”

“You’re right,” the alchemist sighed. He’d been hoping to avoid this. “Which is why we’re going to go see my mother. First thing in the morning.”

* * *

 

Earl kept watch that night while Carlos slept. The prince was clearly uncomfortable with the arrangement, but he made no attempt to argue against it.

That was doubly infuriating-- partly because being told to leave would have given Earl an excuse to go prowling the halls looking for Kevin again, and partly because he was certain that that was why Carlos kept his silence.

It wasn’t like Earl was going to fall for the same trap again. He’d been caught off guard before-- the next time he faced the Oracle, he’d be prepared for his tricks.  

The thought sent an odd thrill through him. He wouldn't be tricked again by that wide, hungry smile…

Earl shook his head. He was standing watch. That was not the kind of thing a soldier thought about while guarding someone. Especially not about his enemy. It was disgraceful and wrong.

Even if it was interesting.

Not that it was any more than an intellectual exercise; he was sure Kevin had retired for the night by now. After all, even Oracles had to sleep. Didn’t they? If Earl wandered out of the room and went hunting for him again, would he find anything? Not that he could try, because that would leave Carlos undefended in a place where assassination attempts were apparently a favorite pastime.

The debate circled around and around in Earl’s head until the pulsing orange glow that leaked underneath the curtains was replaced by a brighter, clearer, more blinding illumination.

How anyone slept in this damned place was beyond him.

The night had left him irritable, and the morning’s conversations didn’t exactly improve his mood.

“It’s probably best to stay relatively quiet around my mother,” Carlos informed him. “She’s a bit… um… effusive, but if you don’t say much, she’ll probably lose interest and move on.”

“I’ve dealt with royalty before.” Not like Earl wasn’t a _King’s Champion_ or anything before this.

“There’s also a chance we can talk her into a meeting with Kevin,” the alchemist continued. “If that happens, be on your guard. I’ve had some pet theories that he might be some distant cousin of the incubus or siren, but I haven’t been able to do any substantial research in that direction. What I do know is that he can see things that aren’t there-- or, rather, things that are there but can’t otherwise be seen-- and he can manipulate those things. And not just with his words, but reaching into your mind and--”

“Yes, I know Kevin has magic!” Earl snapped. “You can stop reminding me.”

Carlos recoiled like he was expecting a blow. “Right,” Carlos said at last. “Just… making sure.”

Earl might have felt bad about that, if he weren’t so irritated by this whole ordeal. At least he didn't have to dress up for the occasion. He was still wearing his formal uniform from the Eternal Scout ceremony, and it was perfectly suitable for an audience with royalty.

They continued in silence into the eye-watering brightness of the receiving room.

"Oh, Carlos, darling." Queen Salvadora crossed the room far faster than should have been possible in those heels. "How did you sleep? I do hope your room was to your liking-- I had them keep it just as you left it. Oh, but Vanessa said there was something you wanted to show me. What was that, dearest?"

Earl quietly checked to make sure he was still visible. The Queen hadn't so much as looked in his direction. He was used to being ignored by dignitaries, but he was a stranger who had arrived unannounced. Surely that warranted some curiosity at least, right? Even a glance.

Carlos gestured at Earl. "Mother, I wanted to introduce you to Sir Harlan of Night Vale. He's here to assist me in my mission."

The queen smiled fondly at them both. "It was very thoughtful to bring along a bodyguard, darling, but I'm afraid I won't be moved on my decision. I simply cannot arrange a meeting with Kevin, and that's final. But really, you should have introduced your man yesterday. I would have arranged him a proper place to sleep."

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Earl said. "But that won’t be necessary."

The queen finally looked him in the eye, grinning like her birthday had come early; in the same moment, Carlos blanched.

“Oh! Of course. Oh, Carlos, I’m so glad to know you’re not completely alone. But you should have _said_ something-- a mother does worry.”

“Yes, mother,” Carlos said tightly. “But I...er… was hoping to keep this matter private.”

“I understand completely,” she said, though Earl didn’t understand at all. “It’s simply _dreadful_ how rumors spread these days. We wouldn’t want those tongues to wag…” She giggled, a high, trilling sound. “Unless we would!”

Carlos wore the expression of a man who’d just witnessed an amputation. “Th-thank you. Mother.”

“Though I really must say, you have excellent taste. So handsome-- and muscular!” She grinned at Earl. “I imagine you must have _remarkable_ endurance.”

Carlos covered his eyes with one hand. “Please stop.”

Earl just stared, dumbstruck. Not just at the sudden change, either-- but because she knew. She knew he'd killed one of her children, and of all the possible reactions, she wanted know about his _sex life_? With her _son_? Who was standing _right in front of her_?

Carlos didn't even look confused so much as mortified, and given the subject, Earl could sympathize. But seriously: Was this sort of thing normal around here, or was this woman legitimately insane?

“Oh, but it’s so _romantic_ ,” she gushed, snatching up one of Earl’s hands before he could defend himself. “Tell me, when did the whole torrid affair begin? After you saved my darling boy from his brother-- you must have looked positively dashing in that moment, I can’t imagine how he kept his hands off of you-- or was it before? Oh, oh-- a whirlwind romance? Or a slow burn? I simply _must_ know.”

 

 


	6. In which there is seduction and salvation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll give the warning again: if you are sensitive to dubcon or noncon, please proceed with caution in this chapter, or skip it entirely. You'll be able to follow the story without it, and Kevin doesn't care about consent. 
> 
> Huge thanks to Kya, EuleVix and DangerSocks for all your guys' help!

“My pretty little errant knight…”

With a single motion, Earl grabbed the sword from his belt and sliced the air behind him. The blade moved unhindered.

“Missed me, sweetness,” Kevin crooned, his voice echoing oddly off the mirrored walls. “I’m in no mood for blood play today. But if you put that thing away, we can play with other swords.” Dear Masters, was innuendo the official language of Desert Bluffs or something? Earl had already lost one day sidestepping the queen’s questions, and every day since, Kevin danced around just out of sight, whispering those… _things_ into Earl’s ear.  

“Go fuck yourself,” Earl hissed.

“Gladly. Care to join me?”

“You’ll have to come out first.”

The Oracle answered with a long, oily giggle. “Oh, you sound so angry, my dear little Scout. Why is that?”

Because this whole hunt was an exercise in frustration.

Carlos had said as much after they’d escaped from a truly mortifying meeting with the queen: the more the two of them wanted to find Kevin, the more obvious they would be to him-- practically blinking red beacons for him to follow. And since the alchemist apparently knew everything, he insisted that Earl sit quietly and twiddle his thumbs while Carlos tried to talk his mother into helping them. The Family Strex had to have some way of harnessing Kevin’s power, after all; it was just a matter of finding it.

All the while Earl could hear Kevin, just barely out of sight, whispering to him. And every time Earl tried to pounce, Kevin was long gone, and Earl was left alone with his own imagination.

Dear Masters, his imagination had never been so vivid before. He could feel the things Kevin described like they were actually happening to him. And if Earl wasn’t entirely repulsed by those suggestions-- he was only human, wasn’t he?

Besides, he needed something to keep his mind occupied during the long, boring hours while Carlos slept. And at least then, he didn’t risk the alchemist asking him about it. He’d never understand.

Carlos was too chaste. Respectable. Careful.

He would blanch at the ideas in Earl’s head.

Earl was a soldier. A protector. The Eternal Scout. He shouldn’t be thinking these things about his enemy.

“Is it because you never quite made sense of who you are?” Kevin asked. “Who you were? Who you will be?”

What Earl was was a Scout. He could track a pteradon across a desert, and by the Spire, he could track one man through a building. Forget prudence. Forget caution. Despite all his insistence to the contrary, Carlos wasn’t making any progress, and that meant it was time to do things Earl’s way. It was preferable to another miserable day pretending not to hear Kevin’s whispers-- and absolutely anything was better than another innuendo-laden “chat” with Queen Salvadora.

But if Earl got lucky and managed to stab Kevin first... well, that would work, too.

“Are you satisfied with it all?” Kevin continued. “Or are you feeling, perhaps, _unfulfilled_?”

Earl spotted a flash of movement in the distant mirror, and he took off after it. But when he turned the corner, Kevin was gone.

“I can scratch that itch for you,” Kevin purred. “I can scratch it until it bleeds, and still you’ll be begging for more. I won’t leave you unsatisfied.”

If Earl was flushed, it was only out of anger. Really.

He wasn’t remembering the heat of Kevin’s body against his, or the lips he very much should not have enjoyed on his skin. He wasn’t counting the years since he’d last been touched that way.

“I can give it to you, my little knight,” Kevin said. “I can give you everything. Passion and pleasure and purpose. The recognition you deserve. The rewards you crave. I can quench your thirst, my sweet.”

Earl wanted to get his hands on the damn Oracle, to wring his neck or pop his head off-- or fuck him senseless. Because Earl _wanted_ him, damn it.

And what was worse, Carlos knew. One look at Earl, and he’d known. And he just had to act all saintly about the whole thing, like it wasn’t perverse and disgusting and wrong. Fuck, Earl would have preferred that. Let the pampered prince judge him-- then Earl would have stabbed Kevin in the gut, just to prove he could. No, Carlos just had to act like this whole damn thing was a great big ordeal, like Earl was doing some great grand thing by stomping through this maze like an imbecile and pretending that voice wasn’t driving him insane, and _Earl didn’t want that_.

“I don’t want that,” he repeated aloud.

“Then what _do_ you want?” Kevin’s voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, low and sultry. “Say the word, and it’s yours.”

He was getting closer.

“You will be loved. You will be cherished. You will be needed-- you _are_ needed, my dear, brave Earl.” With every word, he seemed a little bit closer, a little bit less like Kevin and more like Cecil. “I need you.”

A hand skirted Earl’s arm, and he spun around, ready to rip Kevin’s head from his shoulders. But before he could land a blow, Kevin was in his space, pressed tight against him, breathing his air--

Kissing him.

It occurred to Earl that he should fight back, that he had a sword and he should be using it, but his hands were tangled in Kevin’s hair, and his knees were folding underneath him, and Kevin was easing him to the floor oh so sweetly.

“My brave soldier,” Kevin whispered into his hair. “You’ve done so well. And I’m going to take such good care of you. Just let me take that load off your shoulders.”

He was taking other things off Earl, too: opening Earl’s jacket and unlacing his pants. He slid nimble fingers through the suddenly loose waistband, gliding along the tender skin there. Earl bit back a moan.

“That’s right,” Kevin crooned. “I’m going to make you feel so good you can’t stand it. Just give yourself up to me, and I’ll give you a new reason to smile. You have such a lovely smile.” His hands slid lower, and Earl shuddered. That-- that was his cock. Oh dear Masters, he was trailing his fingertips down the length of it, back up again-- pressing his palm against the head. Earl’s whole body was alight with the sweet friction. His hands grasped so tightly at Kevin’s skull that it should have been painful, but the other man just smiled with Cecil’s lips, still dark and swollen from the kiss.

“That’s right.” Kevin curled his fingers around Earl’s length, and the Scout keened. “That’s right. Give it all to me. Be mine, and you’ll never want for anything again. All I want is you-- body, mind, and soul.”

The words barely made sense anymore. There wasn’t room in Earl’s head for anything but want and need and the aching hardness and how Kevin was pumping it and all Earl needed to do was say yes-- one little word and he could feel like this forever.

And Earl wanted it. He wanted it so damn much.

He tightened his grip on Kevin’s scalp and pulled him in closer, smothering him in a bruising kiss--

\--and then Kevin fell forward as Earl turned intangible.

For a moment he simply floated there-- even without a body, he itched to resume what he’d been doing-- but that was wrong. All kinds of wrong. He needed to get out of there fast.

He moved blindly, not bothering to think or aim, just rushing to get away. To go in whatever direction called to him more than the man he was leaving behind.

When he finally did look up, he was in a room he recognized. It was darker here than the rest of the palace, sheltered from that infernal light by heavy curtains. Carlos’ room.

And Carlos was here, systematically checking over every surface for possible methods of assassination. He was meticulous. He was busy. And it would be so easy for Earl to turn around and go back the way he came…

Instead, he turned solid, reeling as his feet hit the ground.

Carlos whirled to face him. His expression flashed from guarded to surprised to concern, and then Carlos was moving. “Dear Smiling God-- Earl?”

Carlos moved to steady him-- which was ridiculous, really. Carlos wasn’t a soldier, he was an academic. A royal academic. Earl could knock him over in nothing flat. But that didn’t stop the alchemist from bracing Earl with his entire body, and instinctively Earl clung to him in return.

Which was all backwards. Earl was the strong one. The brave one. The one who protected and supported and served. He didn’t get taken care of. That just didn’t happen.

No, he was supposed to brush Carlos off, tell him he was fine, and get his traitorous body back under control again. Because he was a soldier. He was the Eternal Scout. He was supposed to be better than this.

“Come on, Earl,” Carlos said gently. “Let’s get you off your feet. Can you make it to the bed?”

Why did Carlos keep fretting like that? Worrying and coddling him, like he was a child?

And why did Earl like it so much?

He stumbled backwards, about to fall, but he hit the mattress. As soon as Earl was steady, Carlos dislodged himself.

“There you go,” Carlos continued. He hadn’t stopped talking, had he? “Are you-- no, never mind. You’re not all right, and don’t even try telling me otherwise. Can you tell me what’s wrong? Or what happened?”

_What happened is I let myself get ambushed by a monster. He tried to buy me and I almost let him._

_And I_ wanted _him to._

_Masters, I still want him to._

But Earl couldn’t say that. He couldn’t ever say that, because that would be admitting it. And if he did that, there was no going back. No denying, no pretending, no nothing.

He kept his gaze on his hands, on the sheets, on the bedposts-- on anything but Carlos. Because if he looked Carlos in the eye, he’d know.

He’d know.

Hell, maybe he knew already. Earl was unfinished and aching, and that only added to his humiliation. He should go take care of that, but the thought made his insides twist. The idea of being alone after all that-- after finally being touched like that--

A soft, uncalloused hand smoothed Earl’s hair.

“I’m so sorry,” Carlos said. “Challenging Kevin on his own turf-- Something like this needed much more preparation than I used. I should have known better. I did know better. And I shouldn’t have put you up to it.”

Earl took a breath to steady himself, but inhaled only the smell of Carlos: lavender and mint and the acrid tang of mineral fire. It smelled good. Solid. Safe.

He tugged at Carlos’ arm, expecting resistance, but the alchemist indulged him.  Earl sighed against that wrist, his lips catching on that dark, delicate skin.

Carlos tasted even better than he smelled.

A voice in the back of Earl’s head told him that this was going too far-- it kept saying things about boundaries and personal space and things that were inappropriate-- but that voice had already screamed itself hoarse getting him away from Kevin, and now it was barely a rasp. Carlos leaned so close he was practically on top of him. The ache of arousal had been subdued before, but now it was back full force.

Carlos most definitely would have felt that.

Earl tensed, steeling himself for the abrupt cold of two hastily separated bodies.

Instead, Carlos pressed closer against him. “It’s all right, Earl. I’ve got you.”

The croaking voice of reason tried to argue that those words could mean any number of things. Earl leaned up and kissed him anyway.

Carlos’ lips were soft and tender, but there was a confidence in the way they moved against Earl’s. A gentle pressure as he pushed Earl into the mattress. One hand remained tangled in Earl’s hair; the other brushed his chest, tentative and feather-light, every movement a request for permission. It was agony-- too soft, too little, enough to tease but not enough to properly feel, like an itch of static through his clothes-- and Earl arched into the touch.

Carlos’ eyes darkened. “Do you like that?”

Earl gave his head a frenetic nod. “I need--” The words unravelled in his mouth.

“What do you need, Earl?” Carlos prompted. The authority in his voice sent a pleasant shiver down Earl’s spine.

Earl pushed harder against the hand in his hair, focusing on that solid point of contact. “Keep me here. Don’t give me any reasons to go back to that thing. Help me remember why I got away from him.”

Another kiss pinned him down, and he let out a small noise.

“What did he offer you?” Carlos asked it like a command.

Kevin’s words slithered in Earl’s head, promises of love and praise, but Earl couldn’t make himself say that. Not to Carlos. Not like this.

Instead he grabbed Carlos by the shoulders and kissed him, hard and desperate. And Carlos-- maybe Carlos understood, because he shifted to straddle Earl’s lap.

“Is this what you need?” he asked, pulling back just slightly. Earl nodded again, frantic. “Good.” With a sharp motion, his hips ground down, and lightning arced behind Earl’s eyes. A low groan bled into Carlos’ voice.

“Kevin is a liar,” he growled against Earl’s mouth. “A liar and a monster. You deserve better than the likes of him. I’ll give you better. I don’t care what he’s offering, he can’t have you.”

His motions took on a new rhythm, faster and harsher than Kevin’s had been. There was no hint of Kevin’s syrupy seduction here-- Carlos was rough and claiming, every thrust a flare of heat between Earl’s thighs.

Carlos started pulling at Earl’s clothes, untying the laces and yanking the long tunic over Earl’s head.

The exposure of air against his bare chest came like a shock. He was always clean when he became tangible-- there’d never been cause for him to undress since he’d been recorporealized.

“Okay?” Carlos asked, pulling away for just a second, and Earl took advantage of the distance to shuck his pants down his hips. Maybe he should have given Carlos a bit of warning before he’d done that, because Carlos was still on his lap, falling forward as his center of gravity shifted. He caught himself beautifully, though, trailing kisses down Earl’s neck and chest, exploring Earl’s skin with his mouth.

And then he got to Earl’s stomach, he pulled back.

The possessive air melted away, and in its place was a different expression-- scientific interest. Curiosity. He pinned Earl under the same attentive stare that he had given the rock formations in the cavern-- but while he’d kept his hands mostly to himself there, here he ran his hands over the planes of Earl’s body, following the grooves where toned muscle flattened out into the groin, smoothing over the jut of pelvic bone, tracing the sensitive crease at the base of his thighs.

And then he moved inward. He cradled Earl’s scrotum in his hand, gently feeling every inch of it-- the texture, the slight give, the weight of it. He devoted the same attention to Earl’s cock, ghosting over the full length of it with his fingertips. Vaguely Earl felt like he should feel self-conscious at being examined like a scientific specimen, but something about it thrilled him. He drew himself up to lean on his elbows, but apart from that he remained perfectly still, swallowing the moans and sighs that followed each delicate caress, lest he disturb Carlos’ investigation. He wanted so much to please the alchemist.

Carlos leaned in closer, shut his eyes and inhaled. Apparently satisfied with what he’d discovered, he pressed his lips to Earl’s cockhead.

Earl couldn’t keep his silence anymore: a desperate whimper curdled in his throat, and Carlos sat up.

“Too much?” Carlos asked, pulling away.

A plea of _no no no don’t do that just keep going please keep going_ somehow turned into a wordless whine by the time it got to his mouth. If he wasn’t close before he damn well was now. And Carlos-- fuck-- he was still fully clothed, barely rumpled. He didn’t even have a damned hair out of place, and just the thought of it was ratcheting the pressure in Earl’s groin painfully tight.  

Earl caught his sleeve; he managed to string enough consonants together to form “please.” Masters, he was so hard he hurt.

Carlos frowned, considered for an agonizing moment, and then wrapped his hand around Earl’s length.

Earl threw his head back, panting. How long had he been breathing so hard? Did it matter? Carlos was touching him and squeezing him and pumping him once, twice, over and over and--

Release hit Earl like a punch in the gut. He couldn’t breathe. He didn’t want to. Carlos was somewhere above him, watching him, guarding him, and Earl allowed himself to succumb to a blissful white haze.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This round of seduction is brought to you by the Home Depot.
> 
> You can do it! We can help!


	7. In which there are confrontations and concerns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kya, DangerSocks, EuleVix? 
> 
> You guys are awesome. Absolutely awesome.

When Earl drifted back to awareness, he was draped in silk sheets and wrapped around a warm, soft body. He sighed and snuggled in closer against the other man, comfortable and content. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had such a restful sleep.

No. Wait.

He could. It was the last time he’d actually slept.

Which had been more than five years ago.

A bright light filtered in from somewhere beyond him, and his groggy mind flew into a panic. He couldn’t believe it was morning already. He couldn't believe he’d actually fallen asleep. He needed to get out of here before Cecil woke up and saw him.

Except the person whose leg was hitched over Earl’s hip wasn’t Cecil.

That was Carlos. Who was dressed in the loose tunic and breeches that he normally wore under the rest of his clothes. Unlike Earl, who wasn’t wearing anything.

The previous night came rushing back to him, with Kevin and-- and Carlos.

Dear _Masters_ , what had he done?

Maybe there was still time to get away, to pretend the last twenty-four hours had been some kind of bizarre fever dream-- but then Carlos’ eyes twitched open.

“Hey,” the alchemist mumbled, slurred with sleep. A thin line formed between his eyebrows. “Are you okay?”

 _Sweet Spire._ “Carlos, I’m so sorry.” Earl tried to scramble away, but he found himself caught in a net of sheets and limbs. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. I have no idea what came over me, and I--”

If nothing else, the floundering apology seemed to wake Carlos up. He propped himself up on one elbow, looking concerned. “That’s not what I asked. Are you okay?”

Earl gaped at him. How in the world was he supposed to answer that?

“Are you?” Carlos asked again.

“I--” Earl’s shoulders sagged. “I don’t know.”

Carlos’ expression softened. “That’s all right. You don’t need to figure it out right away.” He raised the blanket to give Earl more room to navigate.

He was being offered a chance to leave, but Earl’s stomach turned at the thought of plucking up his clothes off the floor, naked, while Carlos observed. He’d rather just vanish--

Oh. That was right. He _could_ vanish.

And so he did.

* * *

“Come on, Cecil,” Dana said, setting his breakfast on the table in the corner. “It’s time to get out of bed. You’ve got a busy day ahead of you.”

Cecil rolled over and groaned into his pillow, and the servant promptly dragged it out from under him.

“Dana, you’re not helping,” he muttered.

“Sure I am. I’m helping you be a responsible adult. Now get up so I can make your bed.”

He kept grumbling, but he dragged himself obediently out from between the sheets, rolling gracelessly onto the carpet at Dana’s feet. “I’m out.”

“Congratulations on that momentous achievement,” she said, stooping low to help him up. “Have trouble sleeping again?”

He heaved a dramatic sigh. “I don’t even know anymore.”

“Then you can figure it out during your meeting with the City Council. And after that you’re supposed to mediate the feral dog situation.”

“Mediate?” He brushed himself off as Dana helped him to his breakfast. “They’re a bunch of vandals and hooligans. What’s to mediate?”

Dana shrugged and turned back to Cecil’s bed. “The Sheriff wants to capture the dogs and send them back to the Dog Park. The Mayor, though, is saying that there are no dogs, and they’re just a bunch of old debris tumbling around in the wind. The last time they argued about it, Mayor Winchell got so mad she turned into a horse.”

“Ugh. Fine. We should probably do that in the courtyard, then. She always has trouble with the stairs when she gets like that.” He looked past the sausages and eggs to the magical fuel that kept his voice going and his heart beating: coffee. “Please tell me you have some good news for me. Like… maybe some certain someones might have possibly finished their trip and come home? Maybe?” He took a long draught in an effort to hide the hopeful pout on his face. He only succeeded in scalding his tongue.

Weird. The coffee tasted funny today.

“Sorry,” Dana said. “No news of them so far. But I can have Maureen check by the lab. Maybe the rest of the team will know when to expect them back.”

“That would be great.” He swallowed, swirling his tongue around the roof of his mouth. Usually an aftertaste would have started to fade by now, but it didn’t. It tasted weirdly metallic, with undertones of something like… rain? Or… purple?

No, that couldn’t be right.

“Dana? Did the kitchens start using a new supplier?” The contents of the cup were rippling and splashing. He tried to set down the cup, but it was getting hard to see through the lights that were spiraling across his vision, and suddenly there was something unbearably hot on his hand and spilling onto his lap. He searched his mind-- surely someone would have announced a test of the dream broadcast system, or a new variety of feeling set for delivery, or… or something, right?-- but his mind suddenly felt soggy, swamped, and everything important felt like it had gotten swept away.

“Dana?” he said again, only it didn’t sound right coming out of his mouth. And Dana was taller than she had been-- no, she was standing over him. He was on the floor.

How’d he gotten on the floor?

And now she was shouting-- running-- _Dana-- Dana, don’t leave me here--_

_Dana?_

And then someone else stepped into the room.

Someone Cecil didn’t recognize. Except he did.

And he was wearing a tan jacket.

* * *

Carlos stared at the ceiling.

_Bravo, Mister Alchemist. The first time another guy spends the night with you, and he runs away traumatized._

He shook his head. That was beyond unfair to Earl, and he knew it. The whole situation was unfair to Earl, and this was no time to wallow in self pity.

He would not think about the details of what had happened last night. He would not wonder whether he should feel more guilty or embarrassed or ashamed for the things he'd done.

None of that would change what had happened, anyway, so it would be nothing but a pointless distraction. Better to dedicate that energy to coming up with a plan.

Though, by the time he got cleaned up and dressed, he was starting to wonder exactly what kind of a plan he’d need to formulate. What if Earl spirited himself away back to Night Vale? It would-- it would make sense, really. Hell, maybe that’s where he disappeared to first thing in the morning. That was… probably for the best, given everything that he’d dealt with.

But the thought of facing Kevin alone made Carlos’ stomach turn.

But he could manage it, right? It wasn’t like Kevin could actually kill him.

Unless he did something to Carlos’ phylactery. Which, knowing Kevin, he probably was already aware of that option. He was the Oracle, after all.

But then, he didn’t even need to be that straightforward. There were so many things he could do to a man without leaving a mark…

He was so lost in his thoughts that he nearly cried out when something flickered in the corner of his eye. But there-- a flash of red.

“Earl!” He turned around to get a better look at the other man, but Earl was still intangible. “Earl?”

The Eternal Scout didn’t reply.

A slow shiver crawled up Carlos’ spine.

“...it _is_ you, right, Earl?”

The voice that finally answered him was quiet. “Yeah.”

Thank the Smiling God. “Are you--” No. That was a dumb question. “You were gone for a while.”

“Yes.”

“Did you--” No. No, no, no. Coming up with the right questions to ask was always the worst part of being an alchemist. He tried again. “Will you be heading back to Night Vale, then?”

He wasn’t actually sure what reaction he’d expected from that-- a simple yes or no, maybe. He wasn’t quite prepared to see Earl appear suddenly before him, bristling with agitation.

“ _What_?” the Scout asked, his voice too steady for the look in his eye.

“You can. Go back to Night Vale. If you want.” Smiling God, why did Carlos always flounder like an idiot around this man?

“We haven’t finished what we came here for,” Earl said.

“I’m just saying--”

“I know what you’re saying,” Earl snapped. “You don’t need to worry yourself, _Your Highness_. I can handle this.”

That stung.

Carlos had no experience with this kind of thing-- with sex or mornings after or the conversations that happened then. Was it supposed to feel this hostile? This cold? Did people usually come back the next morning and talk to their partners like they were strangers?

Or had Carlos just messed it up that badly?

He wanted to hide. Find some dark corner and never come out. 

But Kevin was still out there. 

Carlos steeled himself and looked Earl in the eye. “Obviously you can’t handle this,” he said. Which was a bad idea. Antagonizing the super-powerful mystical warrior was not something attempted by those who wanted a long and happy life.

But then, neither was alchemy.

Earl loomed over him, menacing and huge, just daring Carlos to repeat that.

So he did.

"You've faced him twice now, and both times you ended up a wreck. Your method isn't working."

“Three times,” Earl corrected. “The first time I fucking stabbed him.”

“And he’s learned from that,” Carlos said. “Why haven’t you?”

"I said I can handle this."

"How? By throwing yourself at the problem until it wears down? He knows how to get under your skin, Earl. He's done it before."

"You think I don't know that?" Earl snarled. “I've seen it! I was there! I won't let him get to me again!"

_No no no. Think, Carlos. You're a man of science. He's talking himself into circles._

He needed to snap out of it.

“Well, what if it wasn't you?" he asked.  "If it was one of your soldiers. Would you let them keep going like this? Would you make them prove this... whatever the hell it is you're doing?"

Earl froze, but he continued to rage, like a fire behind glass.

“It's different," he growled. “I’m the Eternal Scout--”

“And the last time I checked, that doesn’t exempt you from basic reasoning,” Carlos said. “If it was anyone else-- literally anyone else-- how would you tell them to handle this?”

Earl’s expression shifted, fury smoldering into anger behind closed eyes.

Carlos tried again. “Earlier you said you’d seen something like this before. With valentines. How did you handle those?”

“That’s different,” Earl muttered.

“Tell me anyway.”

* * *

 

Those who lived outside of Desert Bluffs assumed that the Oracle was hard to find. That intrepid souls would have to go on harrowing journeys and face insurmountable trials before they could claim their heart’s desire.

Inside the kingdom, though, the Oracle’s lair was common knowledge, as was the fact that every quick fix came with a price. It was up to the clever and the desperate to determine if the cost was worth whatever they would gain from the exchange. And often it was-- after all, people would have stopped coming to Kevin if he always took more than he gave.

He was like a spider that way:  building up his web and letting his prey come to him. By the time they’d made the decision to seek him out, the battle of wills was already half won.

That, Carlos had insisted, was Kevin’s weakness.

So Earl ventured out again, armored in that knowledge, a plan of attack, and sigils written in anointed oil across his skin under the cover of his clothes. He still couldn’t help feeling vulnerable and alone.

But then, that was probably normal for bait.

He meandered the halls, his lips pressed into a thin line, concentrating hard on a lifetime of accumulated fantasies and repressed desires. Kevin would be able to sense that, as easily as the proverbial spider could feel a tug on its web, and he’d come running.

A sealing charm was hidden up Earl’s sleeve: an intricate arrangement of lead wire and black salt. It wouldn’t entirely subdue the Oracle, but it might negate the worst of his influence.

Assuming Carlos had constructed it correctly.

Earl certainly hoped so, because Kevin was taking the bait. Earl could hear the Oracle’s treacly voice slide down the hall, punctuated by the muted pad of footsteps.

“Silly little Early bird,” he cooed. “You keep flying away. Now why do you do that, I wonder?” A high giggle scraped the ceiling. “Do you think of me as you flutter away by yourself? Of course you do. You must! Oh, but I could stop that fluttering. I would wrap you up and tie you down, just the way you like. Tether you and save you from all those doubts and second-guesses. Save you from yourself.”

The voice had fallen so low it resonated in Earl’s bones, and it was close.

A pair of hands wrapped lovingly around Earl’s shoulders, and the Eternal Scout went still, acutely aware of that pressure.

“Do you like this game we play, Early bird?” Kevin trilled. “Cat and mouse? Hide and seek? Do you like the stakes?”

Earl swallowed. He wasn’t sure whether that voice made his skin crawl or goosebumps rise on his flesh.

He shook his head, no. He was certain that’s what he was doing.

"Of course you do. You must. Were you as brave when you became an Eternal Scout? Would you trust your body to serve again in such a fixed bondage? You would look so pretty on my wall." Kevin leaned close, whispered in Earl’s ear. "You would be my favourite decoration."

A hand slithered up from Earl’s shoulder, slid to cup his throat. A thumb slid tenderly along the underside of Earl’s vulnerable jaw.

“I can sound like him,” Kevin said. And in that moment, he did. In that moment, Earl lost faith in his own corporeality. “You can be with him forever. His trophy. Mine. You would never notice the difference. I will polish you thoroughly, my pet. You'll be my little secret. You know I know what you desire."

That warm, familiar body slid around him, shifting to stand directly before him. And it was Cecil-- it was Cecil-- except for those wide, empty eyes. There was an abyss in those sockets, and it was staring back at him.

Earl struggled to keep standing. To keep keep breathing.

"Would you do that for me?" Cecil crooned. "Would you make me your master?"

There was only one answer Earl could give. There had only ever been one answer. He pulled up for a kiss, hungry and ashamed. He could feel the corners of that mouth grow against his. Smile widely. Swallow him.

Earl wrapped one hand around Kevin’s neck, the other around his shoulder-- and with a slip of his wrist and a twist of his fingers, he fastened the lead circlet around Kevin’s throat.

The sound that left the Oracle’s mouth wasn’t human.

He wrenched away from Earl with a blood-curdling shriek, clawing at the collar, flailing like an animal in a trap. With the collar in place, his power was disrupted-- he still looked like Cecil, but uncanny and awful and wrong. The fractured reflection of a broken mirror.

Earl stumbled-- he didn’t even realize he’d been backing away from the creature until he ran into Carlos.

Carlos, who’d watched the entire performance from behind a mirror.

Carlos, who laid a hand on Earl’s shoulder to steady him. “You did it.” It might be high praise, coming from him, if in the same breath he didn’t follow it with “Are you all right?”

And Earl might have declared that yes, he was all right.

But then that shrieking changed, twisting into grotesque laughter. Tears poured from the Oracle’s eyes, but they weren’t tears of pain or fear.

“Oh! Oh, this is a treat!” he howled. “My congratulations to the happy couple.” He doubled over laughing. “Oh, but Cecil will be so sorry he missed out on this blessed union. Not that it will matter for much longer. But ah!” He giggled, his fingertips blistering as he tugged at the collar. “You’ve caught me. Don’t the rules of the game say you get a wish?”

Earl stepped back, ceding the floor to Carlos. He wasn’t retreating. He wasn’t avoiding the sight of that… thing.

The alchemist stepped between them. “You already know what I want.”

“Oh? Let me think-- a new chemistry set?” Kevin snickered. “The Philosopher’s Stone? Oh no, you wouldn’t want that-- not worth a thing to you if you didn’t figure it out for yourself, is it? Funny little thing you are.”

Carlos’ expression hardened. “My memories. You took them from me. Now you’re going to give them back.”

“Oh?” Odd, how expressive Kevin could be without actual eyes. The thought turned Earl’s stomach. “And why would you want those pesky things? Now, of all times?” His attention flicked back to Earl for a moment-- just one, and then it was caught a glint of metal at Carlos’ hip.

Carlos’ hand rested on the hilt of a knife at his belt. He slid it from its sheath, stroking one finger over the runes that covered the silver blade. “My reasons aren’t yours to toy with. Give them back. Or I’ll take them by force.”

“Oh, that’s adorable!” Kevin tilted his head to one side. “You’re no Diego, dear Carlos.”

“No, I’m not,” Carlos said evenly. “He never would have hurt you.”

A long minute passed in silence while Carlos matched Kevin’s eyeless stare-- then, satisfied, the Oracle shrugged.

“Do what you want. But I should warn you, killing me won’t bring back your quicksilver king.”

Carlos stiffened like he’d been crystallized.

The epithet meant nothing to Earl-- but the rest of Kevin’s jibes suddenly slotted into place.

“What happened to Cecil?” Earl asked, his voice icy.

Carlos half-turned. “It’s just a trick. He’s lying.” But his words dissolved into background noise.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” Kevin chided. “You have each other now. The two of you can ride off into the sunset and have your very own happy ending. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Earl wasn’t sure how many steps he’d taken or what he’d done in the interim-- only that Carlos was suddenly regaining his balance several feet behind him, and Kevin was pinned against a shattered mirror by his throat.

“ _What. Happened. To Cecil?_ ” The words barely managed to scrape between his bared teeth.

“Tsk tsk,” Kevin sighed, apparently unbothered by the lead seal being shoved into his vocal cords. “All that misdirected rage. If you really wanted to know, you should be asking your brimstone prince.” He tilted a glance in Carlos’ direction. “He’s the one who let him out, after all. And let _her_ in.”

“What are you talking about?” he demanded. “Carlos, what is he--”

He turned his attention from Kevin for less than an instant, but that was all it took. Kevin twisted like a cat, grabbing at the damaged collar with both hands and snapping it free. The seal fell away in a mess of crumpled metal and stone.

Kevin’s smile widened, and his unchained power swept over Earl like a sandstorm. No-- not sand. It was cloying, heavy, dragging at his limbs and thickening his senses. He was drowning in poisoned honey. His knees buckled, and he tilted forward-- then pitched abruptly back as Carlos grabbed him by the shoulders and yanked him backward.

“Earl, I want you to go intangible,” the prince commanded, reaching into his jacket. “Do it now!”

He obeyed on instinct, just in time to see two glass vials hit the ground at Kevin’s feet.

And then the world went up in flame.


	8. In which confrontations go poorly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Always and forever, thanks to DangerSocks, EuleVix, and Kya for their help editing this.

The seal shattered, and Kevin’s power unfurled. Carlos could feel it, hazy and cloying, but he wasn’t the target of the Oracle’s attentions.

The Eternal Scout slumped, stunned by the blow. His eyes grew wide, his stare blank. The muscles of his face went slack, and he looked oddly childlike without the constant vigilance etched into his every feature. It might have been a good look for him-- but Carlos remembered all too clearly what came after.

Smiling God, he could still see the look on Earl’s face when he’d appeared the previous night. Haunted. Shaking. Clinging. Desperate. Not yet broken, but so close that Carlos could see the fissures in his eyes.

Kevin had done that to him. Snatched Earl’s most hidden desires and corroded them into something perverted and wrong, smearing them in his face like they were something to be ashamed of. Twisting lust and need and humiliation into a rope, a bridle, a noose.

And the bastard was going to do it again.

Correction: _he would try._

Earl swayed like he was going to fall into Kevin’s arms, but Carlos grabbed him by the shoulders, yanking him away from the predator.

Evidence said that Earl would flee from his attacker, regroup and move into a more advantageous position-- not just linger there, exposed and vulnerable, right in arm’s reach of his enemy.

“Earl,” Carlos barked with the same authority he’d used the previous night, and Earl jerked like he’d been smacked. “I want you to go intangible. Do it now!”

There was no hesitation: Earl vanished, and Carlos didn’t waste another second. With one hand he shielded his phylactery; with the other, he smashed the vials that contained his contingency plan.

Half a pound of ground sodium met twice its quantity of water. The metal exploded, the chemical reaction so violent it hurled Carlos and Kevin into opposite walls. It blazed like a miniature sun, frothing and boiling-- each bubble bursting with a concussive force and a searing flame and a splash of molten metal.

It should have been hot, should have been infernal, but Carlos couldn’t feel anything but a blaze of triumph.

And then he couldn’t feel anything at all.

It was like someone had severed the strings of the marionette that was his body, leaving it limp, lifeless, and unable to do anything but stare at the destruction he’d wrought.

At the raw power of alchemy.

* * *

 

“Carlos. Carlos, can you hear me?”

This seemed oddly familiar: lying on the ground, cradled in another man’s arms, hurt like hell.

Worse than hell, now that some of his mutilated nerves were starting to grow back. He thought he knew the worst a body could endure-- and then he tried to uncurl his hand from around the phylactery. Bits of charred skin tore from his flesh, stuck to the crystal. He would have screamed, but his lungs wouldn’t take in enough air to form more than a hiss. He peeled open his eyes.

Moving even his neck was painful, but he had to see. The phylactery-- it looked okay. Undamaged. He’d live. And Earl-- Earl looked stressed, anxious, concerned, but not like he was in pain. None of that internal horror Carlos had seen on his face before. Kevin hadn’t gotten to him again.

Carlos could count that as a victory.

“Thank the Spire.” Earl sounded like he was muttering from across the room, not speaking a few inches from Carlos’ face. “For a second I thought-- but you’re not. I’ve seen you heal from a lot, but this-- this is a lot. _Masters_ , Carlos, what was that?”

Water, sodium, and some extremely reactive stuff he’d come across a few months ago that the people of Night Vale referred to as vimby. But the thought of saying that much was daunting. “Alchemy.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Earl said. The wall behind him bore a spiderweb of cracks. The few mirrors that still stood were shattered and half-melted.

“You okay?”

“Fine. I’m fine. I got away in time.”

“Good.” Worth it, then. “And Kevin?”

“He’s gone,” Earl said. “I don’t know where he went. He took off after the blast, and then I saw you lying there, and I--” He paused, looking down the hall. “Someone’s coming. Guards. They’ll have heard that.” He shook his head. “What am I saying? Of course they heard that. They probably heard that back in Night Vale. Don’t worry, though. I can hold them off.”

Carlos shook his head-- or at least, he tried. “No need.” Every syllable had to be dragged from his throat. “I’ll be fine. Go.”

Earl frowned. “I’m not going anywhere. Carlos, you’re--”

“Go. To. Cecil.”

Earl started, his mouth silently forming the king’s name.

Had he honestly forgotten the cause of his earlier rage? Some very distant part of Carlos was flattered.

Other parts of him had more immediate concerns. “Go. Hurry. I’ll… follow. When I can.”

The guards were likely coming to investigate the explosion. They wouldn’t be any danger to Carlos. But they would be to Earl, if he was panicked and aggressive when they arrived-- better to spare him from that fight. And Kevin--

The guards filled the hall and fanned out, swords at the ready. Two of them knelt at Carlos’ side while a third shouted for a physician.

Earl was already long gone.

* * *

 

Earl knew there was a backup plan.

He didn’t realize it would be this. He didn’t realize what it would do to Carlos. Didn’t think he’d see him like that: torn up and burned, too charred and bloody to tell the extent of his injuries. Alive, but just barely, and only thanks to the magic surging through his veins.

And it was Earl’s fault. The guilt and shame dragged him down like a blanket of lead. Carlos was in agony and it was his fault, because he was undisciplined, because he lost control, because he’d walked into yet another one of Kevin’s traps. And now Carlos was hurt, bleeding, alone. Everything Earl was said to stay at his side and keep him safe.

But he couldn’t trust everything he was anymore. His own body, his thoughts, his heart, his instincts-- they’d betrayed him. And despite all of that, Carlos hadn’t. He’d always led Earl right. So when Carlos gave the order, Earl obeyed without question. He could do that. He could obey.

It was a shallow comfort, but it was something he could latch onto, and so as the scrublands rushed past him, he let that flood his mind. He would go to Cecil. Protect him. Save him.

He wouldn’t fail again.

He entered Night Vale’s palace like a ghost, following the directions pointed out by his internal compass. Cecil was here. He was close.

In his rooms, apparently.

Earl phased through the wall and into Cecil’s study and found… Cecil studying. Or poring over paperwork, at least, one knuckle resting between his teeth as he checked the wording of a decree against that of a recent treaty.

The gesture brought a flare of warmth over Earl. It was a childish habit, forcibly restrained once Cecil had started making public appearances as king. Earl could still remember the way the young prince used to worry at his knuckle as he’d watch a combat demonstration, trying to commit every detail to memory.

Cecil blinked, like he’d caught sight of something in the corner of his eye, and looked around. “I thought you were going to shorten the table legs in the kitchen,” he said to the empty air. “Are you finished already?”

Earl frowned.

Oh. Cecil thought he’d spotted the Faceless Old Woman.

Earl materialized, his booted feet hitting the floor without a sound. “No, Cecil. It’s me.”

Surprise sprouted on Cecil’s face at the first syllable; by the time he looked up, pure joy had bloomed across his face. “Earl-- you’re back!” He was on his feet in an instant, hands roving up and down Earl’s shoulders and arms like he was trying to memorize him by touch. “How are you feeling? Are you tired from your trip? How was it? Did you run into any trouble out there?”

Earl had no idea how to answer that. Any of it. Instead, he returned Cecil’s grip, holding him at arm’s length. “Never mind me. Are you all right?”

“Er… yes?” Cecil raised an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t I be?”

“We were told you were in danger,” Earl said. “That someone was coming after you.”

“Oh.” Cecil’s expression shuttered, though his smile didn’t change. “Well, I’m fine so far. Even my vertigo has started to wear off, for what that’s worth.” He cleared his throat and lowered his hands, and Earl hastily did the same. “Well, then. I’ll be sure to let Nazr know to be on the lookout. Were there any details you wanted me to pass along? Or would you rather take care of that yourself? Or-- maybe after you sit down? You look exhausted.”

“I’m fine,” Earl said automatically, but Cecil didn’t looked convinced. And now that he thought about it, Earl didn’t feel particularly convincing. His posture had started to sag, his shoulders to droop, his knees to bend like he’d anticipated an impact. He felt drained-- physically, mentally, emotionally. That first one didn’t even make sense: sure, he’d just come from Desert Bluffs, but it hadn’t been like he had run the entire way. He hadn’t even used his body.

“Humor me,” Cecil said, stepping past him to pat an armchair.

Earl sat.

“Now.” Cecil continued moving around the chair. “Tell me what you know.”

It felt like Earl was being interrogated, or reporting to a commanding officer. Which, technically, Cecil was, but… but it was _Cecil_. He twisted to better face the king, but Cecil seized his shoulders and held him down.

“Ah ah,” Cecil said. “Sit.”

Earl struggled to make himself relax, trying hard not to think about how many people had been grabbing him by the shoulders lately-- or the intentions behind those touches. Weren’t shoulders supposed to be a particularly safe zone?

The question became all the more relevant when the pressure of Cecil’s hands started to change, the firm hold turning into kneading motions.

Earl stiffened. “Cecil?”

“Hmm?”

“What are you doing?”

Cecil squeezed a particularly tense spot at the base of Earl’s spine, and the Scout drew in a sharp breath.

“I’m keeping you from standing up.” He said it like it was matter-of-fact. Like Earl wasn’t making embarrassing noises when Cecil’s thumbs ground into his shoulder blades. “I believe I asked you a question. What should I have Nazr look out for?”

Oh. That.

Earl tried to focus. “There was reference to a ‘her’. He wasn’t clear, but he implied that--” Oh, that felt good. “-- that recent events let someone in. He was talking like he expected you to die.”

“Hmm.” Cecil continued his massage, and Earl’s head tipped forward. “I can’t exactly have Nazr bar all women from the palace. Do you have anything a bit more specific?”

Maybe if Earl hadn’t been so relaxed, he might have watched his mouth. But he didn’t: “He said Carlos knew something about it.”

“Oh! Good.” Cecil rewarded Earl with a slide of fingers along his spine. “You stay put, then. I’ll have Dana go get him, and then we can get to the bottom of this.”

And then Earl realized that he probably should have kept his mouth shut.

“I expect he’ll be unpacking at his lab right now?”

Earl swallowed. “I doubt it.”

Cecil’s hands traced the lines of Earl’s ribs. “Oh? Where did you leave him?”

Was it still too late to go intangible? “Desert Bluffs.”

“...Oh?” Cecil’s hands finally stopped their roving.

“He told me to go straight to you. To make sure you were safe. He said he’d follow after as soon as he could.”

“As soon as he could,” Cecil echoed carefully, giving deliberate stress to the last word. “What’s keeping him?” His hands were still on Earl, trapping him against the chair.

“There was an explosion.” It felt like the words were being pulled from Earl’s throat.

Cecil’s grip tightened almost painfully. “Are you all right? Is he?”

“He told me to hurry here almost as soon as it happened.”

“ _Earl_.” There was a warning in that voice.

“It looked like he was already starting to regenerate.”

Silence.

“Whatever magic they used to keep him from dying, it’s definitely working.”

In hindsight, that was a stupid thing to say. Why had he said that?

Finally Cecil spoke, his voice strained. “And… right now… he’s in Desert Bluffs.”

Soldiers do not squeak. Eternal Scouts especially do not squeak. “Yes.”

“Alone.”

“His mother is with him,” Earl said. “And there were palace guards--”

“His family,” Cecil said quietly. “And his country. Have tried to _murder_ him.”

Earl twisted out of the king’s grip. If he was going to have this talk, it would be to Cecil’s face. “And yet he believed you were in more immediate danger.”

Without Earl’s shoulders to lean on, Cecil stumbled forward. “Well, he believed wrong. He needs you more than I do. _So go help him._ ”

Earl stood tall, his hands balled into fists at his side. He would not be juggled from assignment to assignment like an unwanted page. “The rest of his family actively fled from him. You’re the one who’s had a threat made against your life. Whatever’s coming, it’s coming for _you_. And until it does, I’m staying right here.”

“So what if his family is avoiding him?” Cecil said. “That damned Oracle is still out there, and he’s defenseless against it.”

The air felt like it had been sucked out of Earl’s lungs. “Apparently not.”

“Why not?” Cecil’s eyes narrowed. “What’s going on? What happened?”

Earl kept his expression blank. “Kevin showed up. Carlos fought him off just fine.”

“And where were you during all of this?” Cecil demanded. It was a reasonable question.

“I didn’t.”

“What do you mean, you didn’t?” Cecil demanded.

“Exactly what I said. I didn’t fight him.” Earl was certain his face couldn’t get any redder. This wasn’t something he’d wanted to talk about. Ever.

Especially not with Cecil.

But Cecil gave his next command-- “Explain it to me.”-- and Earl couldn’t make himself disobey.

“Kevin got to me,” he said, more steadily than he felt. “He got under my skin. I couldn’t fight him off. Carlos could. So me going back there would make me more of a liability than an asset. Sir.”

Cecil stared him down: judgemental, scrutinizing, sifting Earl’s every word to glean maximum meaning. Earl stared straight ahead and contemplated vanishing. Possibly never reappearing again.

The thought was entirely too tempting.

When Cecil spoke again, his tone was softer, but no less firm. “What did he do to you?”

Because Cecil had a talent for asking exactly the right questions to leave Earl abjectly humiliated.

“Please don’t,” Earl whispered, barely audible. He kept his eyes unfocused. He didn’t want to see the look on Cecil’s face. He could already imagine disgust and pity and disappointment there-- he couldn’t decide which one was worse, and he wasn’t sure he could bear finding out.

His teeth were clenched, his shoulders tense, his hands balled into fists. He didn’t realize he’d been bracing for impact until it came. Arms wrapped around him-- not to pin, not to restrain, not to subdue. Just holding him.

“He was you,” Earl said in a small, lifeless voice. “That’s how he got to me. He was you.”


	9. In which there are reunions and restorations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks, as always, to Kya, DangerSocks, and EuleVix~

Earl had no delusions about his situation. He’d been charged to protect Carlos, and he’d failed in that duty. It was only natural that he’d be punished for it.

But at least Cecil could call it a punishment. Instead, he’d declared that Earl was on leave. Officially it was a chance to recover from recent trauma, but Earl felt more like a misbehaving child who’d been sent to the corner where he couldn’t cause more trouble.

Which was fair. He’d been compromised. He’d made poor choices. If anything, Cecil was being absurdly generous-- and that just made it worse. How many times would Cecil ignore his mistakes? How badly would Earl fuck up before the king lost his patience entirely?

And then what?

But the decision had been made, and Earl wasn’t about to argue against it. So he dedicated himself to being useful in whatever ways he knew how: by exploring the underground tunnels and patrolling the Whispering Forests and phasing silently through the Dog Park.

He just hoped it would be enough.

* * *

 

There was an unwritten rule in Desert Bluffs about assassinating a person while they were already wounded. It was unanimously deemed unsporting: if the one who’d dealt the wounding blow couldn’t kill their target in one go, it was hardly fair to give them a second chance so soon; for the rest, it was uncivil to let your sibling do most of the work and steal their victory at the last second.

With that in mind, the palace infirmary was typically outfitted with the utmost security. Palace guards routinely patrolled the the lines of beds, and each of the physicians was trained to subdue even the most determined assassins, along with anyone else who hadn’t been given clearance.

Consequently, Carlos spent the first few days of his recovery in near isolation. His only human contact was with the white-eyed physicians who changed his bandages and brought him food and broth. They weren’t much for conversation, speaking only in glittering swoops of the surgical razors that lined each finger of their leather gloves. He had been able to discern a few details of his condition from their flashing sign language. His burns were intense, but relatively scattered across his body. The fire was nothing compared to the sheer concussive force of the explosion: it had apparently shattered a few bones and liquefied a generous number of his internal organs. By all rights, it should have killed him.

But then, it really wouldn’t have been the first time he’d died.

Isolation gave Carlos plenty of time to think, but lately that was the last thing he wanted to do. Too often his mind would wander back to Earl: if he’d made it to Night Vale all right; if he’d made it in time; if he was taking good care of Cecil, and if Cecil was taking care of him.

And when he couldn’t stop himself, his mind would wander elsewhere-- back to that night he’d spent with Earl. To the things they’d done. The things they’d said. He dissected every twitch, every glance, every word, breaking down each element into its most basic form to see exactly where he’d gone wrong.

Or, more precisely, if there was any fragment of that interaction he’d gotten right. Because the deeper he pried, the tighter his stomach twisted.

He argued with himself. Pointed out that it had been his first time, so of course he wasn’t any good at it-- and the situation had been confusing and frightening and uncertain, so naturally Earl was going to react badly, anything else would be an irrational expectation-- and-- and--

And maybe sex was just not something he should do again. It was an experiment, and it failed, and that wasn’t something he should take personally. Just move on, and not think about it.

And most of the time, he succeeded.

Between the physicians’ assistance and the restorative properties of his phylactery, Carlos made impressive strides toward healing. By the end of the week, he was even allowed into a high-ceilinged sunroom to entertain visitors.

Which, naturally, meant his mother.

“Well. I hope you’re satisfied.” Queen Salvadora dropped herself on the seat across from Carlos with a dignified huff, taking care not to let her skirts brush the healing burns on his legs. They weren’t nearly as ugly as they had been a few days before, but they were still tender. “We’ve finally got someone to fix that terrible mess you’ve made of the hall. The whole repair will be terribly expensive-- which is to say nothing of the repainting that’ll have to be done, or the mirrors that must be replaced, or the carpets!”

Scoldings of that variety had been her preferred variety of bedside manner for as long as he could remember; as a child he’d been genuinely remorseful for the damage he’d caused.

Then his brother Sergio had explained finances.

“It’s not like we can’t afford it, mother,” Carlos said. “If anything, a project like this will stimulate the economy. I think it’ll do the local artisans good to receive some patronage, especially after that failed war effort.”

His mother pursed her lips at him, but it was a pleased sort of scowl.

Carlos took a sip of his water-- just water, though it had been boiled, filtered, and tasted by three separate testers before it had been given to him-- and regarded her carefully. “Have you had any luck in finding Kevin?”

“Absolutely none.” She threw herself across the arm of her chair with a martyred sigh. “Oh Carlos darling, did you have to chase him away? He was such a useful Oracle, really. And your brothers and sisters won’t be pleased in the slightest.” With just as much dramatic flair, she drew herself up again into a more elegant pose. “Still. Politics and all that, I suppose. One simply can’t suffer a threat to live.”

Carlos furrowed his now far-more-stubbly eyebrows. Kevin had hurt Earl-- there was no telling how bad the damage was, or how deep it ran. He’d tried to kill Cecil. He’d used Carlos to strip Night Vale of its defenses and start a war-- one where _children_ had marched to the battlefield. And those were only the crimes Carlos knew about.

Politics.

“He used me,” he said. “He was using our whole family.”

“Of course he was.” She waved him off like he’d asked for sweets. “He was an ally, darling. That’s what allies do. It’s when you get at least as much out of them as they get out of you that you have a profitable partnership on your hands. If you don’t, you simply sever those ties. Clearly, your relationship with our dear ex-Oracle was not the profitable variety.”

“Clearly.”

Normally that might have satisfied her, but she leaned forward with a dainty frown. “Speaking of which. How is the state of your relationship with Night Vale?”

Carlos looked up, confused. “What? It’s fine. What about it?”

“You are my son, darling. A mother worries.” Her eyes flicked to the phylactery, the splint on his arm, the burns crawling like ivy up his arms and legs. “Are you entirely certain your alliance is still... profitable?”

“I don’t follow,” he said flatly.

“It’s so easy to be enchanted by previous investments,” she continued. “You’ve already given so much to a cause, so it’s only natural to want to see it to its fruition. But sometimes there is no fruition. Sometimes the cause will drain you dry without offering any dividends in return. And in such cases, perhaps it’s most prudent to cut your losses, rather than waiting for dividends that won’t come.”

Carlos rubbed absently at his phylactery. “Do you have a reason to believe Night Vale is going to fall?”

“Not fall, per se,” the queen said. “But perhaps it won’t repay you the way you hope it would.” She laid her hand on his, careful to avoid the burns there. “And, if that’s the case, perhaps it’s time to invest your efforts elsewhere. Spare yourself the heartache.”

_Oh?_

_Oh._

“I appreciate your concern, mother,” he said gently. “But I’m not staying in Night Vale because of Cecil.”

She gave him a look.

“Or Earl,” he said, swallowing a pang. “It really is the most mystically fascinating place I’ve ever heard of. I could spend the rest of my life just studying it all, and I could be perfectly happy there.” He ran his hand through his much shorter, rather damaged hair. That would need attending to in the near future. “And it’s not just the academics. I’m happy there. The people there know me, they like me, they miss me when I’m not around.”

Those words tasted strange on his tongue. If he had died in that explosion, his younger brother would be that much closer to the throne-- and that was it. There would be a brief, tasteful funeral, and then he’d be recorded as a footnote on his family tree, just another royal who died without a crown.

But Earl-- Carlos could still see the look on Earl’s face, in the midst of the smoke and wreckage and their own spectacular failure. It wasn’t the kind of look you gave to a ruined asset, or a failed alliance, or an inconvenient kink in a plan. He’d looked haunted and afraid, like--

Like Carlos dying actually mattered to him.

He couldn’t get out of his head how distressed Cecil had looked, when he’d said he was going back to Desert Bluffs. How he’d shifted forward like he wanted to snatch up Carlos in his arms and never let go.

Or the stories Rochelle had told him: Cecil running through unspeakable danger to rush to his side, rending the fabric of reality to bring him back from the brink.

He didn’t realize he’d been staring at his hands until the queen gave them a gentle squeeze.

“But is it worth it?” she asked gently. “Even without your memories?”

Carlos squeezed her back. “Yes.”  

* * *

 

There was a certain instinctive urge to summon an army and bring it down on Desert Bluffs, ripping Carlos out of their clutches with fire and force.

But part of being king was learning self-control, and exercising it liberally-- especially when he didn’t want to. So Cecil pouted. And then he went about getting Carlos back the old fashioned way: with an official missive to the ambassadors. He didn’t expect much of a reply; after all, Lauren Mallard absolutely hated him, and politics between the two kingdoms were bound to be tangled and rocky for decades.

Which is why he was surprised to receive a response within a week, and even more surprised to find it actually amiable and cheerful underneath the exhausting coded language of aristocracy, and even _more_ surprised by the signature at the bottom: Salvadora Strex.

The _queen_.

Well.

This was new.

Carlos, she claimed, was in the process of a speedy recovery, and had apparently smoothed some of the tensions between the two kingdoms. So much, in fact, that the queen had decided to throw a masquerade ball-- to honor the dead, and to inspire more agreeable relations in the future (was it just his imagination, or was ‘agreeable’ written with more of a slant than the rest of the text?).

There was remarkably little labyrinthine doublespeak among the writing, and he had to read it a few times just to make sure there wasn’t an underlying vein of irony he hadn’t caught on the first readthrough. He even summoned Earl back to take a look at it, just to be certain.

“What do you think?” Cecil asked once Earl had finished reading. “Is it a trap or something?”

“Honestly, I have no idea.” Earl had kept his expression entirely neutral from the moment he appeared in the throne room, even when he’d read over _‘--and do bring dear Sir Harlan with you; it would be a delight to see him again!_ ’. “The Queen is clever, but it’s hard for me to say whether she’s being genuine or not. She certainly acted… friendly.”

“She invited you by name,” Cecil said carefully. “Do you think she means you harm?”  

That might have been the wrong question to ask. Earl looked deeply uncomfortable. “I think she intends for me to be her entertainment. She made certain assumptions about myself and Carlos.” He set his face into a mask. “It would be an insult to refuse such a direct invitation, wouldn’t it?”

 _To hell with insults._ “You’re under no obligation to attend.”

“I want to.” Cecil didn’t have to be familiar with Earl’s tells to know that was a lie. The Eternal Scout made no attempt to hide his discomfort, or his resignation. He was going. Obligation and desire didn’t have any part in it.

Cecil donned a self-deprecating smile. “I won’t pretend I’m not relieved to hear that. I’ve found I have less trouble sleeping when you’re around.”

That was supposed to be appeasing. Reassuring. It definitely wasn’t supposed to make Earl stiffen like he’d been caught stealing the crown jewels.

“Oh.” He swallowed. His voice was higher than it should have been. “Do you?”

Cecil raised an eyebrow. “...Yes?” Maybe it was cruel to keep pushing, but Earl’s mortification was entirely more appealing than that grim resignation had been. “Is there a reason why that might be surprising?”

“I…” Earl’s gaze flitted across the floor as he visibly contemplated a lie, and then summarily rejected it. “I might know the cause. Possibly.”

“Go on.”

Earl swallowed again, though it seemed to get stuck in his throat. “I’ve noticed you’ve been having… nightmares. Since I got back. And I’ve found certain… treatments… to be effective against them. To help you sleep more peacefully.” His voice grew small. “So I took it upon myself to... treat you.”

“Is that what they’re calling it these days?” the Faceless Old Woman snickered in Cecil’s ear.

“Treat me?” Cecil asked.

Earl was staring at the floor like he wanted to disappear through it-- and that wasn’t entirely out of the question anymore. “You seemed to rest easier when you weren’t alone. And you’d… ask for me. To stay with you. When you weren’t entirely conscious. I swear I didn’t…” His mouth hung open as he searched for the word. Cecil vaguely suspected that the word ‘inappropriate’ would feature in the rest of that sentence, once he’d put it all together.

He frowned thoughtfully. “How long has this been going on?”

“I noticed your nightmares on the first night after I got my body back.” Earl hung his head. “I’d wanted to keep an eye on you. Make sure you were okay. After what happened, I was worried.”

A long moment passed between them.

“You weren’t ever there when I woke up,” Cecil said at last.

Earl shrugged, like he was testing the heft of new restraints. His voice was so low that Cecil had to hold his breath to hear him. “By morning you didn’t need me anymore.”

“Earl.” Cecil moved closer, and the other man braced himself, awaiting judgement. “Earl, how could you think that?” He cupped Earl’s cheek in his hands, turning him to face him. “Of course I need you. I always need you.”

And he closed the distance between them and kissed him-- sweet and hopeful and forgiving. A promise of love, of worth, of--

Earl stumbled backward, flushed and distressed. Which was most definitely not the intended reaction. “I-- I’m sorry.”

Cecil replayed the last few minutes in his head, trying to figure out exactly what there was to apologize for. All he came up with was an eloquent “huh?”

Masters, Earl kept backing up-- if he kept going like this, Cecil would have to chase him down. “In Desert Bluffs. I-- with Carlos. Things got-- er-- they got complicated. And I-- I slept with him.” He looked absolutely stricken. “Please, Cecil, forgive me.”

Forgive? Something dark and hungry inside him wondered at the plea. What was there to forgive? That thought would be enough to keep him occupied for hours-- more than that, if they paced themselves properly. Oh, this would be _fun_.

But no. He tamped the thought down. Forced his smile to be gentle and unassuming. “There’s nothing to forgive, Earl. I’m happy for you.” If Earl had chosen Carlos instead of him, he wasn’t going to make any demands for his affections. Even if he did like the mental images that provided him.

Earl just looked confused and unbalanced, left bracing for a blow that didn’t fall. Cecil watched that expression, and a surge of protective anger and frustration washed away the last of his arousal. Why did Earl keep looking at him like that? Like he was constantly expecting a rebuke?

And did he look at Carlos that way?

No wonder he’d fled from that kiss.

Cecil’s expression softened. “The queen’s ball will be in a few weeks. You’ll be able to see him again then. If you want, you may be dismissed.”

Earl was gone before Cecil could finish the sentence.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sergio is the creation of http://eruditexperimenter.tumblr.com/ , used with permission.


	10. In which there is a masquerade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I missed last weeks update, so I'm giving you two~

Time passed. Cecil ruled his kingdom, Carlos healed his wounds, and Earl worked to restore his pride. An excited queen set about making arrangements for a lavish party, because they hadn’t had one of those in entirely too long.

And far away, curled at his Lady’s feet, Kevin watched.

He watched souls fragmenting, their cracks patched with forced smiles and quashed desires. He watched castle walls that crumbled, their foundations overturned while the masonry eroded away. He watched the great iron gate collapse onto its own portcullis, the weight of its stones too much to bear without the keystone to hold them in place.

That lovely, fragile keystone. Out of place, but still in one piece.

Oh, Kevin would enjoy breaking him into gravel.

Kevin tilted his head in Her direction, but carefully didn’t look at Her directly. “It seems they’re throwing a party in Desert Bluffs, my Lady. It’s going to be a big one. Quite the spectacle. Would you care to attend?”

She lowered the book She’d been reading and graced him with a glance.

“It’s a masquerade,” he purred. “And they’ll be there. Brimstone, Salt, and Quicksilver. Won’t that be exciting?”

And the Lady smiled.

* * *

 

“I’ve got to admit, mother,” Carlos said, surveying the grand ballroom. “You’ve outdone yourself.”

“Oh, the lighting is terribly inefficient,” Salvadora said nonchalantly, though she didn’t hide a simper. “But I suppose it does look nice, doesn’t it?”

Nice was an understatement.

The delegates from Night Vale had requested that no mirrors were to be left exposed in the areas used by their entourage. The queen had accepted the bizarre request with grace and more than a bit of style: each of the hundreds of mirrors was draped with silk in shades of orange and red and gold. Without their reflections to multiply the light, the corridors were dark, the only light coming from golden lanterns that lined the walls and hung low from the ceiling, some so close Carlos could almost reach out and touch them. The result was oddly intimate, like wandering through the embers of a dying fire.

The queen had insisted that she and Carlos dress to match the decor, and she had spared no expense in the act. The lowest hems of Carlos’ suit shone nearly white, swirling with all the colors of flame that grew richer and darker as it climbed up his body. At his shoulders spread a cape that seemed to have been woven from sparks and smoke. The mask that covered his eyes was a work of art, a sculpture of gold filigree, at once solid and insubstantial.

His mother’s costume was a relative of his own, but in every way it was more: the wide skirts absolutely blazed with their own light, the cape floated like fireflies behind her, the mask rose over her elegantly coiffed hair in the shape of a crown, glittering with amber and yellow diamonds.

Behind a silk-draped screen, an orchestra began to play, filling the air with soft, low music. It would grow livelier in time, but for now it only served to accent the decor as the guests streamed through the wide doors. The queen rushed out to meet local aristocrats and foreign dignitaries, and an army of dark-clad servants melted out of the shadows to attend them. Carlos retreated into the dark as much as he could manage. He’d never particularly cared for these affairs. Even without the threat of murder, there was something unnerving about being seen by so many eyes.

There, in the doorway-- a plain golden mask covered his face, but Carlos recognized the set of the man’s shoulders and the way he moved.

 _Cecil!_ He wanted to call out, yet clamped his mouth shut. That would draw the crowd’s attention for sure, and it would only embarrass the king-- not to mention the woman in black who moved at his side. Dana, perhaps? Pamela Winchell?

Carlos peeled himself out of his hiding spot and hurried across the ballroom, but before he could get very far, his mother caught him by the arm.

“Oh, there you are, darling,” she said, spinning him to meet a pair of strangers. “We were just talking about you. Carlos, darling, these are the Archduke and Archduchess of Luftnarp.”

He fumbled his way through his mother’s gushed introductions and a bizarrely inaccurate summary of his life’s work while the archduke kept pushing for him to come visit their estate. By the time Carlos was able to disentangle himself from the conversation, Cecil was gone.

Dammit.

A hand brushed his arm, and he sighed. For the love of the Smiling God, if his mother could just leave him out of her political machinations, that would be fantastic. He turned abruptly to tell her as much, but his obligatory snappy remark died on his lips.

Only one word escaped him, barely a breath: “Cecil.”

“Carlos. It _is_ you.” The king’s smile sent a pleasant warmth into Carlos’ chest. Cecil’s mask was a typhoon of gems and feathers and lace, somehow arranged in a way that was as tasteful as it was chaotic. The nearly-eye-gouging trim flowed from the mask to a long shawl that wrapped around his shoulders, crossed his chest and wrapped a second time around his waist before it trailed away into nothing. Beneath it, his suit was dark, trimmed with bloodstone and silver, and the relative simplicity only served to emphasize the opulence of the mask. “I was getting worried I wouldn’t find you in all this.”

“Here I am,” the alchemist said weakly. And then he caught himself. Smiling God, he sounded like he was about to swoon. “I mean, you’re not the only one. This whole setup is kind of disorienting. I could’ve sworn I saw you earlier, but…” He shrugged awkwardly. “I guess I was wrong. You look good.”

“And you are utterly breathtaking,” Cecil murmured. “Absolutely perfect. And your outfit’s nice, too.”

Carlos laughed, but it dwindled into nothing as he spotted his mother approaching with another pair of aristocrats in tow. Hastily he extended a hand to Cecil. “Dance with me?”

That grin could have lit up the whole palace.

Carlos pulled him close and swept him into a waltz, following the rhythm of the rising music. The musicians had finally started to take some liberties with their volume, and Carlos had half a mind to take a few of his own. Cecil was only a few inches away, and it would be so easy to pull him even closer.

“So,” Cecil asked after the first few boxes of the dance. “How are you doing? I heard things got…”

“Explodey?” Carlos supplied. “Yes. That was a bit of a miscalculation on my part. But I’m doing much better.” He paused to lead Cecil into a turn. “What about you? I heard there was trouble.”

“Apparently you were misinformed,” Cecil said. “Nothing happened. I’m fine. Earl’s been keeping an eye on me, just in case.”

“Good.” Carlos tried not to sound quite as concerned as he felt. Nothing had happened yet, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t later. And Earl… “Is Earl okay?”

Cecil’s jaw tensed-- subtle, but impossible to ignore. “Oh. Yes. I mean, he’s unhurt.” He hesitated, focusing on his feet for a few beats. “He-- er-- he told me what happened. Between the two of you.”

“Oh.” Carlos missed a step and nearly fell into a suited being in a deer mask. All this time he’d been worried about Earl-- and of course he’d been the priority, but Carlos hadn’t even thought about what that would mean to Cecil. “Oh. Smiling God, I’m so sorry. I know it was out of line, but the situation was-- I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Cecil said, sounding a bit strained. “Really.”

“No, it’s not.” Shit. If Carlos had messed something up between the two of them, he would never forgive himself. “I know you two have something, and I…”

Cecil’s mouth opened, then shut again, and his teeth edged over his lower lip. Their feet slowed. They lost the rhythm of the music, and they wound awkwardly to a stop, shuffled to the edge of the floor by the other dancers.

“...That’s not the impression I’ve been getting,” Cecil said.

Caros could only think to supply a confused “huh?”

“Wait,” Cecil said, reaching under his mask to pinch the bridge of his nose. “You and he-- you’re not? A thing?”

“Um… no?” Was that the right answer, even? “Maybe? I don’t…”

Carlos didn’t know exactly how he’d intended to finish that sentence, but he didn’t get much of a chance to try. At precisely that moment, his mother waltzed into their midst along with her dancing partner. Earl Harlan wasn’t leading the dance so much as he was being shepherded along, looking simultaneously mortified and bemused as the queen deposited him beside the other two.

“Carlos, darling,” she tittered. “Could you be a peach and entertain dear Earl for me? I just spotted that Vansten gentleman, and I simply _must_ speak to him.”

Just spotted him. _Right_.

“Of course, mother,” Carlos said, while Earl darted into the safety of his shadow. “Tell him hello for me.”

“Thank you, darling,” she said, stealing a conspiratorial glance at Earl. “He’s such a treat, isn’t he? I do hope you enjoy yourselves. Ta!” She practically sang the last syllable as she vanished back into the crowd in a blaze of fiery skirts.

For a long moment, Carlos reveled in the desire for another mask. A bigger one. Something like a giant stone slab that he could hide under until this was all over.

But that wasn’t going to happen, was it?

“Well, Cecil,” he said with a wan smile. “In case you haven’t met the woman without any grasp of personal boundaries, that’s my mother. l’ll start passing out the blanket apologies now, shall I?” He offered Earl a sympathetic glance. “I hope she hasn’t traumatized you too badly.”

“It’s easier when you’re prepared for her,” Earl said, and Carlos couldn’t help but wonder if his costume had been chosen with the queen in mind. His normal uniform had been replaced by subdued shades of brown and gray, and his mask was simple leather shaped into the face of a stylized dog, or perhaps a desert fox. The entire ensemble seemed perfectly suited to dissolving into the deep dark of the ballroom; unfortunately, Salvadora’s eyes were even more perfectly suited to spotting wallflowers at a party-- as well as, apparently, conversations that needed a third participant.

Carlos swallowed. Might as well put her efforts to some good use. “Actually, Earl... Cecil and I were just talking about you. About… things.”

Immediately Earl tensed. Cecil looked away. Carlos wasn’t feeling particularly relaxed, himself.

“I think there’s been some… miscommunication,” he hedged. “About the state of things. And since it apparently involves all three of us…” Smiling God, what was he doing? “Andweshouldprobablyclearthatup.”

Earl carefully glanced from Carlos to Cecil, his expression obscured behind his mask. “So… what is it? The state of things?”

“I think that’s the problem,” Cecil said. “I’m not sure I know anymore.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” The awkwardness hadn’t drained away, but at least Carlos wasn’t the only one delving into the conversation. “So… the facts, as I see them: first, Earl and I…” _Dammit, Carlos. This is an adult conversation, and that means learning to speak in complete sentences. And one-word sentences don’t count._ “...we slept together.” One sentence down. He could do this. “Earl, do you have a problem with that?”

Earl’s face flushed crimson behind his mask, but he didn’t seem particularly furious. “...no.”

“Cecil, do you?” Carlos asked.

“Of course not,” Cecil said quickly. And there, too, was a blush. Evidence in support of a hypothesis.

“Good. And for the record, neither do I. Second: Earl, Cecil. Do the two of you… have something?” _Thank you, mister alchemist, for that masterful demonstration of precise language._ “Cecil, you’re in love with Earl, right?”

Cecil’s ‘yes’ was so soft it was almost lost to the music, but it was no less sincere for it.

“And Earl, you and Cecil?” His tone was getting more brusque as he went on. He was an alchemist, dammit, and he could handle this as easily as he could a scientific inquiry.

And maybe his mood was contagious. Earl’s ‘I do’ was decisive and clear-- a fact written in stone.

“Third: Cecil, you liked me once. Has that changed?”

“Not in the slightest,” Cecil murmured, low but utterly sure.

“Okay. Good. And I like you too.” Vaguely Carlos wondered what it said about him, that even his confession of love sounded like a dissertation. “Past performance has indicated a pattern of each of us blocking ourselves to let the other two be together, and though that’s no guarantee of future results, it definitely suggests that jealousy shouldn’t be a major issue. What is a problem is apparently all three of us are absolute shit at actually talking to each other.”

Earl actually snorted at that. Cecil, meanwhile, blinked owlishly at the two of them. “Carlos? Are you actually suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”

There was no more tiptoeing around it, was there? The facts were laid out. All that was left was the inevitable conclusion. “That we all try to do this together. The three of us. I think it would be… I don’t know about you two, but it’d be a hell of a lot easier on me than all the avoidance and guilt.”

Earl nodded softly. “At least it’s worth a try.”

“Neat!” Cecil squeaked, and promptly sucked his lips between his teeth like he could take back the outburst.

Carlos and Earl exchanged glances-- Carlos trying very hard not to smile, while Earl’s look plainly said ‘why yes, that _was_ the single most adorable sound you’ve ever heard’. Carlos hurriedly averted his eyes. If he kept eye contact, he’d burst out laughing for sure. Not just at Earl’s expression or Cecil’s yelp, but at overwhelming relief where there had been so much tension just a few moments before.

But as he glanced away, he caught a glint of light. A plain, golden mask. Only it wasn’t plain. Its metallic lips were drawn into a wide, unnatural, hollow smile. Its eyes were empty and black. The body beneath the mask was neither short nor tall, neither thin nor fat. A perfect match to Cecil.

Carlos straightened in alarm, but Kevin seemed not to have noticed him. He was waltzing, revolving around an invisible axis less than a dozen paces away. And as he turned, his partner came back into view.

The woman from before.

Hers was a simple domino mask: black, lined with silver, and cut through on one side by a bolt of lightning. Her gown, too, was simple enough to be austere, but such a dark shade that it seemed to swallow all the light in the room within its folds, as inescapable as the void. Once his eyes had found her, he couldn’t turn away.

At least, not until he heard Earl cry out. “Masters, _Cecil_!”

Carlos whirled to where Cecil stood, his body rigid, his eyes rolled back into his skull, twitching and seizing like he’d been electrocuted. Earl was already at his side, poised to catch him if he fell. Carlos darted to his other side, and several armed guards wove through the crowd to circle around them.

Cecil’s lips were moving, too, but not with the uncontrolled jerking motions of a seizure. They formed words, though the growled syllables caught in his throat.

He was _chanting_.

Carlos whipped his head around, trying to find the cause-- he’d read about seizures. There must have been some pattern of lights or colors, maybe something he’d eaten, a poison, an attack-- something-- anything--

His eyes again landed on the woman in black.

She’d stopped dancing, her head cocked to one side in interest, the entirety of her attention turned to the three of them.

No. To Cecil.

Because in that moment she seemed to notice Carlos’ stare, and she turned her eyes to him.

Agony ripped through Carlos, so sharp and intense that it stole the air from his lungs before he could scream. Instinctively his hand wrapped around his phylactery-- it had to be okay-- he could survive anything if he kept it safe--

He was on his knees, gasping, wordlessly begging to _just make it stop._

And all at once it receded-- not gone but reduced, but the absence of agony euphoric in itself. His muscles unwound themselves all at once and he collapsed.

His phylactery lay on the floor before his face, the crystal split in a spiderweb of cracks. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The masquerade was specifically Dangersocks' doing. You have her to blame for the pretty~
> 
> I also thank EuleVix and Kya~


	11. In which there is chaos, confusion, and a backrub

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a long hiatus, we're back!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sincerely apologize for my long hiatus. 
> 
> I promise I haven't forgotten you, my lovely readers, or this story. 
> 
> In October, I submitted a proposal to Cliffhanger Press, and my proposal was accepted. Though the release date hasn't been set yet, I'll be publishing an eight-novella series later this year. Unfortunately, since what I submitted was a proposal rather than a finished draft, I've been spending the last several months writing and working with the publishers. It'll keep eating up a hefty chunk of my time until I hit my deadline, but I'm slowly losing my mind without some good old-fashioned fanfic to keep me sane. So I'll try to post whatever I can. 
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at http://a-promise-to-the-moon.tumblr.com/ (Yes, this isn't my original tumblr. That one has since been deleted.)
> 
> I'd be overjoyed to take writing prompts and talk fandom with you.

The room unraveled into chaos. Guests and servants fled. Personal bodyguards rushed to their charges, weapons drawn for defense.

Earl was already beside the people he needed to protect, but too late. Cecil silently chanted, consumed by spasms. Carlos curled in on himself, his whole body contorted in agony.

_(oh masters masters no, things were going to be okay, for a second I thought they were actually going to be okay, oh masters, please, no, not this)_

Whatever had attacked them had done it without so much as a touch-- but Earl hadn’t missed the moment when Carlos collapsed. Where his face had been turned.

A gorgon, perhaps? Some variant of a basilisk?

He kept his eyes low. Most of the feet in the room were occupied with running or spread into combat stances. Most.

A man in a dark suit perched on the refreshments table, his legs swinging beneath him like a child.

Nearby, a woman in a black gown stood perfectly still, apparently undisturbed by the chaos of the room. Earl pulled his gaze away from her, back to the walls. In the panic, several of the mirrors had been stripped of their covers. It didn’t take him more than a second to find a pair that reflected the figures’ faces.

The woman he didn’t recognize. There was nothing out of the ordinary about her, except that she stood by so nonchalantly while everyone else fled.

The man had discarded his golden mask and replaced it with Cecil’s face, eyeless and grinning. Kevin.

_(no no no he’s going to take me, he’s going to kill Cecil, he’s going to hurt Carlos, he’s here he’s here and he’s going to finish what he started)_

But Kevin was watching the scene unfold, like it was all some kind of play. An elaborate production where two people that Earl cared about were made to suffer. It was entertainment for the sick bastard, but it wasn’t his doing.

He turned his gaze to the other mirror, but his eyes found the woman instead. Suddenly, she was only a few feet from where he stood, her attention turned to him, her lips curled into a smirk.

And then a frown.  

The men and women around Earl collapsed, some with screams and some with silent sobs, but Earl remained on his feet, unaffected.

“Oh, that _is_ interesting,” Kevin remarked from his table. The final syllable hadn’t fallen before Earl vanished, reappearing an instant later behind the woman, his sword drawn, lunging to drive it into her heart. But before the blade could pierce her back, she was gone again. He stumbled forward, his momentum slamming him headlong into Carlos. He barely had enough time to hurl the sword safely away before they collapsed in a heap.

Carlos went entirely limp, his eyes wide and empty.

The woman was gone.

* * *

 

Cecil covered his mouth with one hand. “Ugh. Can we just pretend I didn’t… say… that?”

The music had stopped. Where there had once been a floor full of dancing partygoers, the ballroom was hauntingly empty. Bodies littered the floor, and armed guards rushed from one to the next, checking each for vital signs.

A surge of panic. Everything had been fine a second ago-- what happened? Cecil whirled, searching the bodies for familiar faces. Carlos-- Earl-- he was just talking to them. _They were right here!_

A groan.

A sprawled form dragged itself upright and wiped a fringe of red hair from its eyes.

“Earl!” Cecil dove at him, and at the dark-skinned body he was tangled with. “Carlos! Are you--” No, not even taking chances. “ **You’re going to be all right.** But how are you feeling?”

“Fine,” Earl said. “I’m all right. Are you? Is Carlos?”

The first question didn’t even seem worth answering. The second had Cecil looking with concern at the alchemist.

Even though there was no need for concern, because Cecil had already Said he’d be okay, so he would be. That’s how it worked. And even without Cecil’s Voice, Carlos had that crystal thing, and that meant for sure he’d be okay.

Unless--

No unlesses. Carlos _would_ be okay.

Earl gathered the alchemist into his arms. “He’s breathing.” But as he turned Carlos over, the phylactery came into view. The crystal was perforated with deep, jagged cracks. It looked like a strong breeze could rattle the whole thing into pieces.

What would that do to him?

Carlos’ eyes moved under their lids, and slowly he dragged them open. He looked dazed, disoriented-- who in this room didn’t?-- but a thin smile touched his lips when he looked up at Cecil.

“Oh… you’re okay.”

“Yeah,” Cecil said softly. “We both are. We’re--” He glanced at Earl for confirmation. “--We’re fine.”

Carlos frowned at Earl. “And you… changed clothes?”

Oh?

Cecil hadn’t even noticed, but Earl was back in his uniform, his costume in an inelegant pile a few feet away.

Earl shrugged. “Nothing else seems to stick to me. I guess clothing doesn’t, either.”

“Hm…” Carlos murmured. “That’ll take some further investigation.”

Cecil couldn’t help but wonder if Carlos had meant that as a double entendre, or if that was just his own mind running away with him.

That was something to think more about later. There was a place and a time for these things, and on the scene of an apparent slaughter was not one of them.

Horned creatures in white uniforms and bladed gloves appeared, crouching over the wounded and speaking to each other in elegant flashing sign language. At their command, assistants who appeared to be at least part giant marched in and proceeded carrying out the dead and wounded on stretchers. Two pairs stopped nearby, and one of them started signing at Carlos.

“No, I think I can walk,” he said, trying to sit up without taking his eyes off the speaker. “Cecil, they want you to come with them. Will you need to be carried, or…?”

Cecil blinked. “Why? I’m fine. Whatever got you guys didn’t come near me. I didn’t even see it.” Carlos and Earl both fixed him with odd glances. “What?”``

“Cecil,” Earl said. “You were the first one she attacked.” She? “You had a seizure.”

“I’m pretty sure I would’ve remembered that,” Cecil said.

“Apparently not,” Carlos said. “I saw it.”

“But--”

“It won’t hurt to have them look at you,” Carlos said. “Just in case.” He pulled himself to his feet-- and then folded into himself with a grunt of of pain. Cecil and Earl both started forward, but the giants swept him up onto a stretcher before they had the chance. He called something out to them, but it was lost amidst the chaos.

Again the second stretcher was offered to Cecil, but he climbed to his feet with what remained of his dignity. “I can walk.”

* * *

 

Alchemists were good at setting goals. It was a necessary trait, considering the Magnum Opus was something most of the practice would never achieve. You had to learn to set smaller, more attainable goals, or you’d go mad from despair.

Carlos hadn’t honestly expected that ‘stay out of the infirmary for more than a week’ would be one of the more difficult ones. But then, he hadn’t assumed that of ‘don’t die more than once,’ ‘don’t start any international incidents,’ and ‘keep your mother from embarrassing you in front of your paramours,’ either.

Paramours. Plural. That would take some getting used to.

Perhaps he needed to recalibrate what he considered attainable.

One of those boyfriends was currently sprawled across the bed beside Carlos’, snoring lightly. Cecil’s face was soft and relaxed, his mouth open just slightly, and a thin blanket tangled hopelessly around his limbs. He looked so peaceful. Innocent. It made Carlos want to tuck him in properly and smooth his hair and take care of him.

The king was mostly hidden from the rest of the hall by silk privacy screens-- to keep passing physicians from accidentally waking him, perhaps, or to preserve some absurd image that royalty looked any more majestic than the next person while they slept. Or, you know, their privacy. Which was important, and should be respected.

Which meant that Carlos most definitely shouldn’t keep peeking at Cecil through the space between two panels. He had no excuse-- this was the single safest place in the palace, so it wasn’t like Cecil needed guarding, and just because they’d agreed to… whatever they were supposed to call their relationship, it didn’t mean that Carlos suddenly had unrestricted rights to Cecil’s life.

At the very least, he felt like he should ask first.

“Remind me,” Earl mused, flickering at the edge of Carlos’ vision. “Where is ‘curiosity’ on the list of Things An Alchemist Is?”

“It’s somewhere in the top ten, I’m sure,” Carlos murmured under his breath.

Officially Earl had been removed from the infirmary as soon as the physicians determined that he was unharmed. Had he been fully human, he wouldn’t have been able to get back in even if he’d had an army at his call. But all the walls and safeguards in the world meant nothing to a man who could float through solid rock. The only catch was that he had to remain incorporeal, or else he’d be thrown out again-- a fact that the physicians had verified repeatedly, and with all due prejudice. Carlos wasn’t eager to provoke their wrath again.

“Why do you ask?” he whispered, soft enough that only Earl could hear.

There was a mild grin in Earl’s voice. “You know, you could always just ask if he’s all right with you watching him sleep.”

No, that wouldn’t be an awkward conversation at all.

“We should probably just let him sleep,” Carlos said hastily, looking anywhere but in Cecil’s direction. “Did you find out anything?”

“Not yet. The physicians are making fast work of the other patients. Everyone that got hit either died instantly or is perfectly fine; the rest of the injuries aren’t at all out of line with what you’d see from so many people running around in a panic. There were no other reports of seizures. No other incidents like what happened to you, either.”

Carlos rubbed absently at his phylactery. The cracks were just barely wide enough that he could feel them, and they hadn’t showed any signs of change since he’d woken up. The constant stabbing pain that hissed at the ends of his nerves wasn’t about to let up, either. The first wave of it had been sudden and devastating, but since then it had remained steady and unshifting.

It wasn’t the pain itself that bothered him-- he could downgrade it to background detail if he had something else to focus on-- so much as the sharp, jagged way it seemed to radiate across his body.

Like cracks in crystal.

Hypothesis: Carlos had been hit by the same spell, or force, or whatever, that had killed the others. The phylactery had been strong enough to save him, but just barely.

Which led to another hypothesis: Additional strain on the phylactery would probably destroy it.

Another: Judging by the pain he was already feeling, Carlos probably wouldn’t survive that happening.

And that wasn’t the only troubling line of possibilities.

Another hypothesis glared in the back of Carlos’ mind, so solid and sure it might as well have been fact: The whole attack had been focused on Cecil. He’d been the first one hit; the woman hadn’t seemed to notice Carlos at all until he’d turned to her. And according to Earl, she hadn’t turned on anyone else until he’d done the same. An assassination gone wrong, if he guessed right.

“What about the woman?” Carlos asked. “Any signs of who she might be? Or what?”

“That’s just it. Every witness I could find seemed to think she was perfectly ordinary. She participated in small talk, she danced with a few people, had some refreshments, even sang along with an aria for a little bit. Nobody noticed anything malicious or uncanny about her. Are you sure she’s not a witch or something?”

“What she did wasn’t like any spell that I’ve ever seen, but I can consult with my team when we get back. Maybe one of them knows something.”

“If they don’t, I might know someone who does,” Cecil said, poking his head between the panels of his privacy screens. Carlos nearly fell off his bed, and the king used the opportunity to settle in next to him. “Are you talking to Earl?”

Carlos fidgeted. “Er… yes.”

“I hope I didn’t interrupt anything,” the king purred. Purred.

“Um… no?” Maybe? “Earl, did he…?”

“I’m fine if you are,” Earl said. “Though I have to say, it’s refreshing to see it from this angle.”

“See what?” Carlos asked, though he probably didn’t need to.

Smiling God, Cecil was practically nuzzling against him. Out in the open, in plain sight of everyone still in the infirmary, leaning against Carlos like he was a particularly comfortable cushion. Which was… unexpected. But nice. Also strange. And… was that even okay? Getting so close where everyone could see them? What about that whole ‘illusion of majesty’ thing?

“Carlos,” Cecil said. “I know you’re upset, but there’s nothing we can do right now. So you’re better off taking this time to rest, relax, and heal.”

Carlos fidgeted. “But that woman is still out there.”

“Yes, she is.” Cecil cupped a hand around Carlos’ shoulder and started kneading the muscle there, and Carlos lost his train of thought. He hadn’t realized he’d been so tense. “And we’re in the single most fortified room in Desert Bluffs, as you’ve been so kind to remind me. I don’t think we can get much more prepared for her until we get back to Night Vale. Don’t you think so?”

“Uh…” What were they talking about again? “Uh-huh?”

“And Earl agrees with me, too. Don’t you, Earl?”

Earl chuckled. “Nobody warned you he could do that, did they, Carlos? Those shoulder rubs are dangerous.” Maybe he drifted closer, because Carlos felt something warm and comforting settle around him.

Or maybe the massage was just that good.


	12. In which there is science to be done

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This signals my return to Knight Vale, so you can expect some more updates in the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written ages upon ages ago and buried with the rest of my fanfic. 
> 
> Thank you to EuleVix, DangerSocks, and Kya for looking it over.

It didn’t take the physicians long to reach a unanimous conclusion: they had no idea what was wrong with Cecil and Carlos. Carlos had half expected his mother to throw a fit and call in a few dozen experts in all fields magical. Threats from within were perfectly ordinary, but an attack from an outsider-- a stranger, no less-- was unforgivable.

But Desert Bluffs had already been to war once already, just a few short months before. Another attack wasn’t something that could be undertaken lightly. Especially not when the enemy could apparently take down a dozen armed guards with a glance. Even more so when the obvious target of the attack had been the king of another country.

So risks were weighed, and a decision was made. Clearly Night Vale’s forces-- and its Voice-- would be most invested in preserving its king. And that meant the safest place for Carlos to be was with Cecil. So when the king’s entourage prepared to return to Night Vale, Queen Salvadora saw Carlos off along with the rest.

“Oh, Carlos dear,” she said, stopping him before he got very far. “Before you go, take this with you. Tradition and all that, you know.” She pressed a simple wooden box into his hands.

He frowned quizzically at the package. “Remind me which tradition you’re talking about?”

“Don’t be silly, darling,” she said with a titter. “You’re going off with a pair of handsome men to uncover a mystery and defeat an enigmatic enemy? I know a quest when I see one. And it’s only proper to start a quest with a mysterious artifact-- preferably one you don’t actually know anything about until you need to use it. So do be a dear and don’t peek, will you?”

Carlos indulged her, if only out of habit. If the gift was immediately useful, she would have employed it already. He might as well play to the trope. After all, stories had power. The adventurer who received mysterious gifts along a journey was usually one of the heroes, and they tended to live to the end of their respective fairy tales.

At this point, he was willing to take what he could get.

* * *

 

The ride back to Night Vale was quiet and uncomfortable. Several of Cecil’s bodyguards had been killed at the ball, and their bodies had been magically preserved and stowed in a cart for transport back, in hopes that Carlos’ team or Old Woman Josie’s angels or possibly even a Librarian might be able to discern something in an autopsy. Those who had survived kept a tight circle around Cecil and Carlos, wary and weary, jumping at every echo, going half-mad from the occasional flicker of Earl in the edges of their vision.

Earl did what he could to avoid that, circling the party in wide arcs and keeping a lookout for any danger. It eased their tempers slightly, but it also meant he was too far away to carry on any semblance of a conversation. Carlos would have appreciated the distraction.

With the silence, it was hard to focus on anything but the cracks of pain carving through him. It clawed at his thoughts, dragging his attention away from hypotheses and theorems and forcing him to catalogue every twitch and twinge, noting how no permutation of his position could alleviate his discomfort.

He needed to focus. Just… clear his mind. But every time he opened his mouth to speak, his voice caught in his throat. He didn’t know what to say or how to say it. Didn’t even have a subject he could talk about with Cecil.

They reached Night Vale without fanfare or announcement. As they neared the palace gate, Carlos excused himself. He’d spent entirely too long away from his team, and he needed to see them again. He needed the comfort of old friends and familiar surroundings.

Cecil sent him on his way without argument, though he had Michael Sandero and Maliq Herrera accompany him back. Carlos suspected there would be more bodyguards in his immediate future.

Carlos barely had a chance to open the door when a large shape came barrelling through it, knocking him off his feet and sending his luggage flying. The guards tensed to defend him, but he waved a pacifying hand. “It’s okay! It’s okay-- it’s just Gretchen. She’s not gonna hurt me.”

“You sure about that, Strex?” demanded the woman who had him pinned to the ground. “You said you’d be gone a week. Tops. That sure as hell wasn’t a week!” She gave his shoulder a violent shove. “And you fucking got yourself blown up! Do you know we found out about that? _Leann fucking Hart_!”

“Come on, Gretchen,” Dave said gently, emerging from the door to pry her off Carlos. “I know he’s immortal, but cut him a little slack.”

“You couldn’t even write!” Gretchen snarled. “For all we know you could’ve died! And with all the weird readings Lanre’s been getting-- and then Earl comes back without you-- do you have any idea how worried we were?” There were tears in the corners of her eyes, and Carlos felt a pang of guilt.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Yeah, you should be!” she snapped, but she wriggled out of Dave’s grip enough to offer Carlos a hand up. “We’ve already been over this, Carlos. You can’t just shut us out like that.”

“For what it’s worth, writing utensils aren’t allowed in the infirmary. Apparently they might be used as a potential weapon.”

“That’s what they all say,” she sniffed. “C’mon, you stupid alchemist, let’s get you inside. You’re blocking the door.” She tugged Carlos in with her, while Dave helped the guards gather up the baggage off the ground. Lanre and Malai were inside, offering their own (significantly less violent) greetings. He’d spent entirely too long in near-isolation; it felt good to be with his team again, hearing them bicker and chatter and explain the things they’d found over the course of the weeks while he’d been gone. And listening to them helped to take his mind off the constant pain, until he could almost forget he was feeling it at all.

And then a door opened.

A felt bag dropped to the ground, the runestones within scattering across the floor.

Rochelle stood framed in the doorway, her eyes wide and horrified and fixed on Carlos.

“Rochelle?” Malai rose slowly from where she’d been sitting. “Rochelle, are you okay?”

The other woman just blinked, dumbstruck.

“Rochelle, it’s… it’s Carlos,” Malai continued. “He’s back. Just like you said he’d be. Like you saw, remember?”

The seer gave a soft shake of her head, all disbelief and denial.

“Smiling God, Carlos,” she croaked, wrapping her arms around herself. “What happened to you?”

“C’mon, Rochelle,” Gretchen said, her voice oddly high from trying to sound lighthearted. “He doesn’t look that bad.”

It was half-true, at least. His hair was short and tightly curled, not yet grown back from the explosion. It looked presentable, if not quite as good as it had long. Beyond that, Carlos was still regenerating, but the constant pain had taken its toll on him. He knew from the palace’s thousands of mirrors how dull his eyes looked, how heavy the circles under his eyes had become, how much his steps and shoulders dragged when he walked. A long ride back to Night Vale probably hadn’t done him any favors, either.

But that didn’t justify the way Rochelle was looking at him.

“Rochelle, please,” Malai said, inching closer to the other woman, like she was afraid Rochelle might bolt at any second. “Just tell us what’s wrong, and we’ll fix it.”

The seer made a dry choking sound. “F-fix it? I don’t think you can.” She swallowed, and it seemed to get lodged in her throat. “Carlos-- oh, Carlos, I’m so sorry.”

Carlos lifted his hands in an attempt to be reassuring. “It’s okay, Rochelle. Whatever it is, it’s going to be okay.”

She shook her head again. “No, it’s not. Carlos-- your aura. It’s splintered and smashed and-- and _mangled_. I don’t-- how are you even standing right now?” One hand rose to cover her mouth. She was shaking. “Carlos, what happened to you?”

Carlos’ mouth was dry.

Slowly, tentatively, he tugged at the chain around his neck and pulled the phylactery out from under his shirt. “I-- I don’t actually know.”

Rochelle cringed like she’d been slapped; Lanre swore under his breath; Dave, Gretchen and Malai merely exchanged puzzled glances.

“Carlos, what have you done?” Lanre demanded, suddenly a few inches from the alchemist. “What on the Smiling God’s earth have you done?” He pulled the phylactery close enough for him to study, yanking Carlos’ hand along with it. “This is no piece of decoration, Carlos-- this is your _soul_! How could you-- how did you even manage to do this to it?”

“I don’t know,” Carlos said again, a cold sweat beading on his skin. “There was an attack, and this just _happened_.” Panic was flooding the room like a miasma. It was getting hard to breathe. “Nobody in Desert Bluffs had any idea what to do. They thought you might--”

And without warning, the pain subsided, its absence so abrupt it felt like a wave of pleasure. His eyes unfocused, he drew in a gasping breath, and his knees all but buckled beneath him. He might have hit the floor if Earl hadn’t steadied him first.

“It’s okay, Carlos,” Earl muttered. “Easy. I’ve got you.”

A gentle warmth spread from where Earl was touching him, and slowly the panic started to subside-- Carlos’ panic, anyway. The rest of the team was in various states of alarm, thanks to the Eternal Scout who’d just materialized in the middle of an already-tense conversation.

“I wanted to check up on you,” Earl said, by way of explanation. “You weren’t looking too great when you left.”

“Oh. Thanks,” Carlos mumbled. If his voice got any more faint, Earl would probably just scoop him up and carry him to bed. It wasn’t exactly an unpleasant mental image. Completely uncalled for, given the circumstances, but it helped to draw Carlos the rest of the way out of his anxiety. “I-- er-- appreciate that. I guess the trip just took a lot out of me.”

“I noticed,” Earl said softly, letting Carlos regain his footing, though one hand remained on his shoulder, warm as a stone under the desert sun. Carlos tried not to arch into the touch.

Clearly he wasn't trying hard enough, because Lanre was fixing both of them with an impenetrable stare.

Carlos balked. “I'm fine. Really."

"No, you're not," Lanre said slowly. ”You aren't even close." He turned his gaze to Earl. "Sir Harlan, please take your hand off Carlos and move away from him."

Earl's grip tightened protectively on Carlos' shoulder. Despite his confusion, Carlos felt a twinge of satisfaction that Earl had been so much more keen on following his own orders.

"Please, Sir Harlan,” Lanre said. “It's for science."

Earl glanced at Carlos, and the alchemist nodded. This was his team. He trusted Lanre, even if he had no idea what the other man was doing. Reluctantly, Earl lowered his hand and took a step back, and then another.

"Farther, please," Lanre said, and Earl obeyed. Dave and Malai exchanged odd glances. Gretchen tapped Rochelle’s shoulder and pointed at Carlos.

“Farther, please," Lanre repeated.

There was science afoot. Carlos knew that much, and he was interested. Though it would have been nice if they'd told him exactly what science was being done, and why. Not that he could ask-- not if he wanted them to believe he trusted them. But he was curious, and he had a right to know, dammit. And how long would he have to keep proving he trusted them? The whole thing was giving him a headache.

"Dave, do you see it?" Lanre asked.

Dave wrung his hands. "Oh yes."

"Would you please test the hypothesis, then?"

Dave cast Lanre a quick glance for confirmation, then shuffled closer. When he was only a few inches away, he prodded Carlos in the shoulder.

"Hey!" Carlos grumbled. Rather than answer, Dave put his hand on Carlos's cheek. "Dave, do you mind?"

"Sorry about that," Dave said, shuffling away at the same pace he'd come.

Gretchen glanced at the others. "You all saw that, right?"

"Smiling God," Rochelle murmured.

"But it's not conclusive," Malai said abruptly. "We need a larger sample size."

"It's consistent with my findings so far," Lanre said. "I think that warrants a hypothesis."

"Exactly what hypothesis are you talking about?" Carlos tried very hard to sound calm and collected and not irate. He trusted them. Even when they annoyed him. "Would you just explain it already? Please?"

Lanre cleared his throat. "Sir Harlan, please touch Carlos again."

Earl hurried toward him, looking confused and concerned, and... _oh_ . Oh _yes,_ that was nice. It was glorious. It was--

Carlos’ eyes snapped open. It was evidence in support of a hypothesis.

Malai was already hastily writing on a tablet, and Carlos leaned in to read over her shoulder.

_Subject C shows visible positive response to Subject H. Posture relaxes, tension leaves facial muscles, voice softens, hands unclench, mild physical arousal evident. Reactions are consistent when stimulus is reapplied._

_Slow reversal when H is removed. Two steps: furrowed brow, fisted hands. Possibly due to unrelated emotional state. Five steps: tense shoulders, clenched teeth. Eight steps, raised voice, hostility._

_No similar changes when C is presented with control stimulus._

But that wasn’t data-- that was normal. Physical contact with a loved one helped soothe pain, there were already plenty of studies to support that. And yes, Dave and Carlos were good friends, but they weren’t that close. Not as close as Carlos and Earl were getting, anyway. So of course Carlos would react more strongly to Earl’s presence.

Right?

Besides, the pain he’d been feeling ebbed and flowed-- he’d observed that himself. Naturally that would have more to do with physical exertion, wouldn’t it?

The phylactery had only cracked a few days ago, and he’d spent most of that time either confined or travelling; it wasn’t too difficult to retrace his steps, map them against the amount of pain he’d been feeling, factor in the times Earl had been nearby, and Cecil for contrast. It was a rudimentary collection of data, but it pointed in the direction of what Carlos suspected was Lanre’s hypothesis:

Proximity to Earl Harlan diminished his pain-- so much so that a sudden touch felt just short of orgasmic.

“Huh,” he said.

“Does that mean you know what’s going on?” Earl asked. “Because I’m feeling a bit lost here.”

"I've been running tests on the remnants of your statue," Lanre explained. "As far as I can tell, it was the only artifact of its kind. Extremely powerful, and interwoven with entire matrices of wards and protections. The amount of power and planning that must have--"

"Lanre," Gretchen said. “This isn’t a lecture hall. Your findings?"

He caught himself. "As I was saying, something so powerful would have required an incredible amount of magic to destroy. When Carlos tried to free you, he called forth a great deal of power. And when that failed to be enough, his spell sapped the nearest available supply." He looked Carlos in the eye. "Which was you, Carlos. Your soul. Or a very large piece of it. I thought we recovered it when we made the phylactery, but my examination of the statue fragments indicates otherwise. They react to you, Carlos. To you, and to the blood samples we've taken since then. And now you're reacting to Sir Harlan in much the same way. It's still to early to draw any substantial conclusions, but the implications are staggering."

"Yes," Earl said slowly. "They are."

"But the immediate application is that I might be able to use those fragments to repair your phylactery, at least partially. I'll need to do some research first."

"While you do," Earl said, "can I borrow Carlos from you? I need to make some investigations of my own."

Almost as soon as the permission was granted, Carlos was being all but dragged through the door. The alchemist might have complained-- he'd been looking forward to actual rest at some point that evening, and he hadn't even had a chance to unpack yet-- but Earl's hand on his back kept the pain at bay, and the stormy expression on Earl's face had him worried.

"Earl?" he ventured when they cleared the palace gate. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," was the terse reply. Carlos seriously needed to talk to Cecil about outlawing that word.

"Would you care to try that again?"

Earl narrowed his eyes at him. "You used a piece of your soul to bring me back."

"Not on purpose," Carlos said. "I miscalculated. And that's not entirely new information. Lanre guessed as much when he made the phylactery in the first place."

"Did he guess the rest of it then, too? That I'd be drawn to you the way I am? If I'd known that this wasn't real--"

Oh _hell_ no. Carlos wasn't going through this whole thing again. Before Earl had a chance to say another word, Carlos grabbed him and kissed him hard enough to leave the other man shaking.

"Tell me something, Earl," he rasped. "Did you enjoy that just now?"

Earl opened his mouth, but he seemed to still be in the process of catching his breath. Instead he nodded.

"Then that's real. If you want to do it again, then that's real, too. If I propositioned you for sex right now, in the middle of the courtyard, do you think you could refuse?"

"In the middle of the courtyard?" Earl asked, genuinely confused. "Why would you?"

"But that's just it," Carlos said. "You're thinking critically about it. Even if there is a factor influencing you to want to be closer to me, or me to you, all the evidence I've seen indicates that we are both still in control of our actions. Which indicates to me that anything that might exist or happen between us is, in fact, _real_."

Earl blinked at him. “You've been thinking a lot about this, haven't you."

"Yeah," Carlos huffed. "It's part of being a scientist.”


	13. In which sleeping arrangements are made

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is gonna be a longer chapter for me. It hasn't been through my usual betas, mostly because they all have tons of stuff on their plates and I've pushed more than my fair share of writing on them lately, so if there are typos or things that don't make sense, please let me know.
> 
> I will also be posting some outtakes and random Knight Vale smut in another work, so keep your eyes peeled for that in the very near future.
> 
> Also, the first pat of this chapter starts immediately after the end of the previous chapter. In case that wasn't clear.

“I can’t stay much longer,” Earl said, glancing at Carlos. “I still need to check Night Vale’s defenses. After everything that's happened—“

“Don’t worry,” Gretchen said. “He was fine before you got here, and I’m sure he’ll survive without you for a while. Besides, we still need to run some tests without your interference.” Her tone was perfectly professional and courteous, but there was an edge to her cheerful smile that was a patented trademark of Desert Bluffs. _We’re busy here, so just leave already._

Earl didn’t take much convincing before he vanished into the ether. Barely an instant later, Gretchen's composure disappeared, too. In its place was shaking outrage.

“Gretchen?” Carlos asked. “What was that all about?”

“Don’t you ‘what was that all about’ me, you rock-headed alchemist,” she snapped. “Do you think we didn’t hear that just now?”

Carlos kept his expression carefully blank. “Hear—“

“Don’t you dare play any more stupid than you already are,” she snapped. “After everything that’s happened, you’re—you’re dating him? The Eternal Scout? Seriously?”

“What about Cecil?” Dave asked. “I thought you were into him.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t dating Cecil,” Carlos said. Already the headache was coming back.

“You’re dating him, too?” Malai cried.

“Wait, so are you cheating on Cecil with the Eternal Scout?” Dave asked.

Why did they all have to gang up on him like this? Why was his love life any of their business in the first place?

“I’m not cheating on anybody,” he said. Smiling God, he could already feel the pain coming back in full force. But he wasn’t going to snap at them. “Cecil and Earl and I came to an arrangement.”

“All three of you?” Rochelle sounded impressed.

“Yes, all three of us. And we still need to iron out the details, but it’s a mutual thing.”

“Oh,” Dave said. “That’s okay, then.”

“No, it’s not,” Malai said.

Gretchen looked ready to strangle someone. “Carlos, think for a minute. Everything that’s happened to you in the past year can be tied back to Cecil and Earl.”

He bristled. “Wait. Neither of them did anything wrong.”

“You’re kidding, right? Carlos, you’re literally undead right now. Pieces of your soul are… are shoved into Earl! Tell him, Lanre!”

The tall black man looked up from his desk, where he was crushing pieces of Earl’s statue into powder. “Leave me out of this.”

“It’s still true!” she snapped. “The more you hang out with those two, the more awful things happen to you. You’ve already died. And… and dating these two—dating both of them—isn’t going to make it get any better.”

“So what do you expect me to do about it?” Carlos asked. “Keep twiddling my thumbs and avoiding them? Night Vale is a dangerous place. We all knew that before we came here.”

“But it’s that much more dangerous for you,” Malai said. “You’re a smart man, Carlos. But right now, the smartest thing you can do is to leave Night Vale. Get as far away from this place as you can. Right now, it might be your only hope.”

“My only hope for what?”

“For a long life, for one,” Gretchen said.

“A long life spent living in fear? Running from everything that might possibly hurt me?”

“This isn’t a papercut, Carlos,” she said. “How many times do I have to remind you that you died?”

“How many times have I almost died in the name of alchemy? How many experiments went sour? How many times did I mix the wrong chemicals and make noxious fumes? Or make something explode?” His voice was rising, and he struggled to lower it. “I—I appreciate your concern. I really do. But I’m aware of the risks, and I’ve weighed them carefully. And I think it’s worth it.”

“Worth dying for, you mean?”

“Worth staying to try and make it work.”

After this confrontation, Carlos didn’t look forward to trying to get any sleep for the night. The barracks that made up the bedroom didn’t do much for privacy, and there would be no hiding it from Gretchen and Malai if he invited Earl to join him. Without Earl, sleep became ever more daunting. Pushing through the pain to perform basic tasks was exhausting; even walking took more out of him than he could stand. But no amount of focus or meditation could clear up the stabbing cracks on his soul enough to promise even the barest notion of rest. By dusk, he was already dreading the next morning. When a pair of guards arrived at his door, all he could think was _oh Smiling God, not another emergency_.

“What is it?” he asked warily.

Michael Sandero gave a salute. “Special orders from His Majesty. You’re to spend your nights in the castle.”

Gretchen lingered in the doorway behind him. “Orders from your new boyfriend, Carlos?” she asked bitterly.

Michael glanced at her oddly, but turned back to Carlos. “From your mother, actually. She gave explicit instructions that you were to be protected by His Majesty’s personal bodyguards while the danger is still high. And since our numbers are depleted right now, I’m afraid we don’t have the option to split the guards between here and the castle. An apartment has already been prepared for you. The rest of your team is welcome to join you, of course.”

Gretchen sniffed, somewhat mollified. “I think we’re safer here, personally.” But she left to pass along the offer to the others.

Their feelings on the matter were unanimous; their belongings and equipment were already here, and besides, they weren’t the ones being targeted by anything. Dave and Rochelle came out to wish him goodnight, offering him suspiciously encouraging smiles.

On his way to the palace, Carlos tried not to think too hard about what kind of behavior they were encouraging. The thought might have been worth consideration, but at the moment, it only added to his headache. He also tried hard not to think about how many steps lay between him and a warm bed in whichever room Cecil had prepared for him. Right now the walk seemed impossibly huge. Eternal.

The thought gave him an odd burst of energy. The pain subsided, and he felt himself growing more aware of the stars glittering from the deepening void overhead.

The reason for his sudden lucidity stepped out of the castle, signaling to Michael. The bodyguard fell away, retreating to a discreet distance while Earl took his place. Carlos all but melted from the sudden relief.

“How are you holding up?” Earl asked gently.

“Better.” Now that he didn’t have sudden flashes of pain prodding him awake, he started to feel his exhaustion more heavily. They were inside the castle grounds, but there were still endless labyrinthine hallways between here and… wherever. “Tired. Do you know which room Cecil wanted me to use?”

“About that,” Earl said. “I brought up your team’s findings to Cecil. He suggested that I…” He carefully picked over the words. “Assist in pain management until we can figure out a more permanent solution. If that’s something you’d be willing to try.”

Normally people weren’t so diplomatic and roundabout about sharing another person’s bed. Carlos chose his words just as carefully. “I can manage on my own.” Not happily, but he could. “Is that something you’d want to do?”

“I wouldn’t be against it.”

That was… good? Maybe?

“How does Cecil feel about it?” he asked.

“He’s the one who made the suggestion,” Earl said, which felt entirely too much like he was hedging.

“Yes, but he also tends to try to be more generous than is good for him.”

“Agreed.” Earl sighed. “Cecil’s been having trouble sleeping on his own lately. He does better with company.”

“Meaning you?”

“I’m supposed to be helping you.”

“Well, where do you want to sleep?”

“I don’t need to sleep,” Earl said. Which, once again, didn’t actually answer the question.

Dear Smiling God.

Carlos rubbed his temples. “Here’s an idea: if Cecil doesn’t want to sleep alone but he doesn’t want me to sleep alone and you apparently don’t have a preference and we’re all together _anyway_ , why don’t we just all three share a bed?”

Earl was silent for several long moments.

“Sorry,” Carlos said after the quiet got to be too much. “It was just a thought. We can come up with something else—“

“I like it,” Earl said at last.

“Oh. Alright, then.” Admittedly, that was not what Carlos had planned for the night. Or anytime soon, really. They had only even established this triangle a few days ago. Sleeping in one bed already seemed a bit sudden. For him, anyway. He had several siblings who had arranged much more complicated sleeping arrangements on far shorter notice, but that was _them_. Not him. He didn’t even know what to do with himself now, walking casually beside the only man he’d ever… er… slept with.

How exactly was he supposed to make any of this work? Ever?

But when they arrived in Cecil’s chambers, Earl kept looking at him like he had all the answers. And so Carlos explained his suggestion, sounding as stiff and formal and utterly awkward as if he were proposing a new set of experiments. Which this was, in a manner of speaking. The way he described it was enough to render the very idea unappealing, but with every word, Cecil’s eyes grew wider, his brows climbed higher on his forehead, and he shook just a little harder with giddy energy.

“So… what do you think?” Carlos asked carefully.

“Yes. Yes, I do. Please. Right now. That would be… yes.” He was grinning so wide the words barely made it past his lips. “Do you have a nightshirt? Pajamas? I can get you some. Or do you not sleep in them? Not everybody does, after all.” His hands fluttered from Carlos to Earl and back. “Not that it would mean anything if you didn’t. There aren’t any expectations or anything here, after all. Just sleeping, if you want. Or cuddling. Or something more. Or sleeping. Yes. Sleeping.”

“I think right now sleeping is all I’m up for,” Carlos said.

“Neat!” Cecil covered his mouth, like he could belatedly capture the exclamation. A moment later he ushered Carlos and Earl into the bedroom.

Carlos had thought about spending the night with Cecil before, but it was never quite like this. The room itself wasn’t too many standard deviations outside of a king’s bedchamber, even accounting for its distinct Night-Valean sensibilities. But when he’d pondered this moment, he’d always pictured breathless passion, frantic hands and searching lips. Instead, Cecil fluttered around him and Earl like a hen, pulling the blanket to their chins and tucking them in and asking a thousand questions about whether they were thirsty or hungry or warm enough or too cool or how much light they wanted in the room.

It was adorable. Carlos could have watched him fretting around the room forever, but he was so relaxed, and the bed was so comfortable, and Cecil’s bubbling words were so soothing….

The last thing he remembered of the night was the feeling of lips on his forehead as he drifted off to sleep.

* * *

 

Morning arrived, accompanied by the distant howl of dawn. Cecil squeezed his eyes shut and nestled deeper against the pleasant warmth beside him. He felt well-rested for the first time in as long as he could remember, and he didn’t want to let it end just yet. Just a few more minutes of this.

He was drawn into awareness by the steady sounds of breathing, and his eyes drifted open. Slowly the folds of a nightshirt came into focus, shifting as the chest underneath it rose and fell. Carlos lay on its other side, his tragically short hair mussed, his head pillowed on Earl’s shoulder. His arm stretched across Earl’s waist, his hand falling into the dip of Cecil’s waist. Another arm—this one heavier, more decisively muscular—wrapped around Cecil’s shoulders and tugged him closer.

“Good morning.” The words were murmured, barely audible, but Cecil could feel them vibrate in Earl’s chest.

“Morning,” Cecil slurred, still half asleep. This might still be a dream. If it was, it was a good one. “Did you sleep?”

“I dozed,” Earl said. “I like this. Watching you wake up.”

Cecil hummed. “We can do it again tomorrow morning, if you want.”

Earl’s smile warmed. “I do.”

“And the day after that, too. And the day after that. Forever, or at least indefinitely into the foreseeable future.”

The hand on Cecil’s waist squeezed gently. The alchemist didn’t look any more awake than he had been, but there was a contented smile on his face that hadn’t been quite so pronounced before.

Cecil wouldn’t mind staying like this forever. If only they could.

* * *

 

Walking back to the lab was especially uncomfortable now that Carlos had a pleasant night’s sleep to compare it to. Fortunately, Lanre was already waiting for him, ready to begin testing his new project. Bits of Earl's statue had been ground into a fine powder and reconstituted into clay. He applied it like a sealant to the spiderweb cracks in the phylactery, then slathered the entire crystal with the stuff and wrapped it in muslin, just to be safe.

“It’s just a prototype,” he told Carlos, handing him a clay tablet. “I want you to record any noticeable changes throughout the day. I’ll have another ready for you tomorrow.”

Carlos glanced wistfully at his pile of experiments, already starting to accumulate dust from his long absence. Those would need to wait. There were other mysteries to uncover, but they required other forms of research.

Night Vale’s archives were hidden deep within the winding labyrinths of the palace, so many levels down that the air felt cold and clammy on his skin. Torches hung on the walls, so high that their flickering light barely filtered all the way to the floor, while oily smoke obscured the soot-dark ceiling. Enormous shelves towered on every side, stretching in directions that made his head hurt to peer at them. They were existentially dangerous at the best of times, secret and forbidden in ways that only books could be in Night Vale. This place would have been entirely forbidden to him if not for Cecil; even with the king’s permission, he would have gotten lost in seconds without Tamika Flynn to guide him through the stacks.

“I didn’t know you worked in the archives,” he said, trying to make conversation. He’d heard of the teenager, but only through reputation. These days you could tell which homes belonged to members of her child army with just a glance. In their windows hung strings of golden feathers, plucked from the Strex military eagles they’d shot down during the war. Tamika Flynn’s roof was shingled with the spiked carapaces of even more formidable monsters.

“The librarian population has been low lately,” she said. “We need to give them time to regroup before we go back to hunting them.”

“That’s… er… very forward-thinking of you,” Carlos said.

“I learned monster husbandry from Chaucer’s _Canterbury Tales_. It’s a good book. I highly recommend it.”

“Oh.”

“You can learn a lot in a library,” she continued. “Beyond the obvious combat training and battle formations. Advanced research strategies are one of the more obscure fields of study you pick up after a while.” She looked up. “So what is it exactly that you’re researching, Alchemist?”

Carlos hesitated. “I’m… um… I’m looking for information on... er… her.”

Tamika looked over her shoulder, like there might be someone behind her. “Who?”

“That’s all we know, really. The Oracle called her… Her.”

The Advanced Reader stared. “That can’t be everything you know.”

“Well, based on what we know, we can deduce that she’s probably a woman… or someone of another gender who uses those pronouns. We did see her at the ball, I think. Maybe. Unless that was someone else.”

“Did you see what she looked like?”

Carlos fidgeted. His only memory of her face was of pure, mind-numbing agony. “Er… no.”

“You can’t be serious.” She looked one bad decision away from walking out of here and leaving Carlos alone in the stacks.

“He said she’d been let in,” Carlos offered. “Which implies that she wanted in before, but couldn’t do it. So… I don’t know. Are there lists of people who have been barred from Night Vale, maybe?”

Tamika sighed. “This is gonna be one hell of a study session.”

* * *

 

After eight hours of throwing himself at the problem, Earl finally turned it over to the Sheriff.

“Try not to be too obvious that you’re guarding it,” he said, admittedly with more irritation than was necessary. The hole in Night Vale’s defenses was obvious enough already. They didn’t need to draw any more attention to it.

At least it wasn’t some arbitrary patch of grass or stone. The Sheriff’s Secret Police already kept surveillance on houses all over Night Vale; one more wouldn’t be too unusual, even if it didn’t theoretically exist.

The Sheriff made some kind of complex coded hooting noises in reply.

“Right. Yes. Good. Keep that up,” Earl said. He was too tired to bother deciphering the latest cipher. This stupid house wasn’t his problem anymore.

The thought left a guilty pang in its wake. Of course it was his problem. He was the Eternal Scout. It was his job to take care of this kind of situation. And a few months ago, he’d been perfectly capable of actually doing that job. He’d been able to perform miracles, to fold the fabric of reality into origami and twist probability to his will. His mind had been unfettered from the limits of mortal understanding, let alone frivolities like affection and exhaustion.

Now the best he could manage was to throw a patch on the problem and hope nobody noticed the giant gaping hole in Night Vale’s defenses.

“Listen, I’m done for the day,” he said. “So I’ll be going. If you need me, I’ll be in the palace. Try to avoid it.”

Without another word, he vanished.

It was bad enough that he could barely grasp basic concepts that he had once been master of. Even worse, his mind was a mess. His thoughts continuously strayed from existential arithmetic, interrupted by involuntary thoughts like “I have a boyfriend. Two boyfriends. How on earth did that even happen?” and “what year did I get knighted? Cecil should remember, shouldn’t he? I mean, he was there,” and “oh masters, I can’t believe I said that one thing to my crush fifteen years ago. Does he still remember? I bet he still remembers. Is it one of those stories he tells at parties, or is he too polite?”, all of which kept dragging his mind back to a single reoccurring thought: “if this is what a human mind is like, how does anyone ever accomplish anything?”

He allowed himself to drift along with his thoughts, only vaguely aware of where he was going or why. He could feel his internal compass pulling him back toward Cecil and Carlos, one or the other. Right now, he didn’t really care which one.

Strange, that he was drawn toward both of them this way. Carlos, he could understand. That was likely part of Carlos’ fractured soul calling to itself, trying to be whole again. But why Cecil?

There were the obvious answers—because he was in love with the man, because he had dedicated his life to him, because his presence was where Earl had always wanted to be even before he became an Eternal Scout—but none of that had been true for Carlos, and he affected Earl the same way.

Was it because of his contact with Cecil’s Voice? Was Cecil’s soul also stuck inside Earl somewhere?  Was it something else entirely?

He cast his awareness to his surroundings. He was back in the palace again, drifting through stone walls in the general direction of the royal chambers. He passed through one last wall and found himself drifting lazily behind Cecil, pulled along by the odd gravity between them.

Cecil slowed and blinked, tilting his head to catch sight of something in the corner of his eye.

“Hello?” When Earl didn’t answer right away, Cecil scowled. “Spymaster, if you’re sending a message from those mages, I don’t want to hear it. I’ve been pricked and prodded enough for one day.”

If Earl was corporeal, he would have snorted. His feet hit the ground, and he regained solidity. “I will take under advisement that you aren’t to be pricked.” He let a wry smile pass across his face. “Anything else I should know?”

Cecil stopped short, flushing crimson. “Oh! Earl. Sorry, you weren’t supposed to—that is—I thought you were the Faceless Old Woman. She dragged me out to speak with Carlos’ team earlier, and they’ve been running all sorts of tests, and they’re really very uncomfortable, and really, it’s all been an exercise in frustration, and really, that doesn’t need exercising at all because it’s in peak condition.”

“I think I can relate to that,” Earl said.

“Long day?” Cecil asked, starting to walk again, and Earl fell into stride beside him.

“I feel like I’ve been trying to build a drawbridge out of furniture upholstery.”

He hadn’t meant to whine. Really, he hadn’t. But Earl wasn’t up to guarding his words, and Cecil had a talent for drawing the truth out of him, whether he wanted to say it or not. So this time Earl didn’t fight it. He kept his voice low as he explained the endless frustrations of a house that sucked you into other planes of existence every time you touched it, the infuriating calculations and recitations he had to perform to figure out where to move next, and the headaches that came with trying to correct math when it was full of imaginary numbers that lost interest and wandered out of his mind halfway through his arithmetic. When they stepped into the privacy of Cecil’s chambers, Earl let his voice grow louder and his complaints more biting.

All throughout the rant, Cecil had sat back, adding nothing but gentle agreements and encouragement to continue, until every grievance and complaint had bled out of Earl.

 “I hate this,” Earl snapped at nobody at all, his voice rising to almost shouting. “I hate that I can’t do any of this right, I hate that I’m leaving our home unprotected, and I hate feeling so—so completely, utterly useless!”

He stopped, breathing hard and hating the fact that he had to catch his breath at all. Now that he was paying attention, he realized how close Cecil had gotten during the course of their conversation. They’d been walking side by side earlier, a little farther than that during the most violent parts of Earl’s tirade. But now Cecil was so close that Earl’s uniform brushed the king’s cloak when they breathed just right.

Strange, how he could only notice it now.

It was a weird verbal leechcraft—now that the words were drained out of him, Earl felt a little more balanced, a little more empty, and entirely too aware of the long-fingered hands smoothing his uniform.

“Earl.” Cecil drew out his name entirely longer than it needed to be. “You are many, many things. Useless has never been—will never be—one of them.”

“I used to be so much better than this,” Earl said weakly. “I used to be strong, and focused, and capable, and—” He didn’t have the words for it.

“And perfect,” Cecil finished for him. “But now you are human—beautiful, stupid, temporal, endless. Full of all the passions for which higher beings have no patience and no time. And you are precisely what you are meant to be.”

“You don’t know that,” Earl muttered under his breath.

“I know many things. And there are many things I don’t know. And there are even more things that I don’t yet know that I don’t know.” It was probably supposed to sound sagacious, but to Earl’s ears it seemed more like utter nonsense. Cecil’s smile was sly, and he shifted forward, his hips sliding against Earl’s. “Let’s settle, then, on a compromise: you are precisely what I want you to be.”

Earl swallowed. He tried to hold onto self-pity, but it was hard to focus on that over the burning pressure between them.

“What exactly do you want me to be?” he asked.

“You. Just you.”

Masters, he was getting even closer. Earl gazed into his eyes, reminding himself that they were really there, that this was Cecil, not Kevin. That this was where he was supposed to be.

But when Cecil closed that last minuscule distance between them, Earl tensed.

Cecil hesitated. “Earl? Is this not…?” He left the question open for Earl to finish. The force between them relaxed slightly, just enough for Earl to slip away if he wanted to. It was an act of courtesy, even if it was an unnecessary one. Earl could vanish in a heartbeat if he wanted to. He’d done it to Kevin enough times, after all. But Cecil gave him the choice.

“No.” His breath came heavier. “No, this is… this is fine.”

“Are you sure?” There was a note of concern in his voice. A delicacy that acknowledged all the weaknesses that Earl still hated about himself.

That was going to stop. Now.

Earl yanked Cecil closer, pulling him flush against his chest with an iron grip. His leg hitched over Cecil’s hip, grinding with enough sweet friction to light a fire between them. Cecil took the cue without another word, pinning Earl to the wall like he was a trophy. His hips bucked forward, rising into a pulsing, drumbeat rhythm.

Fiery kisses carved trails down his throat and to his collarbone, and he threw back his head to grant better access. He clawed at Cecil’s clothes, trying to be careful not to tear fabric or skin in his rush. Cecil pulled back to give the clothes better clearance as Earl pulled them over his head.

But when their shirts were a messy pile of linen and silk on the floor, Cecil made no move to pick up where they’d left off. In fact, he wasn’t moving at all, beyond a strange, slow swaying.

Earl struggled to catch his breath, suddenly on high alert. “Cecil, are you alright?”

The king’s expression was frozen in that same expression of hunger, but his eyes were vacant. His lips were moving, but his words were nothing but a hissing breath between his teeth.

Earl had seen this before, in a ballroom in Desert Bluffs. He vanished from Cecil’s grip and reappeared on his other side, ready to strike down the woman in the black mask and her eyeless croney. But there was nobody there. The room was empty except for Cecil and himself.

Earl felt sick.

“Cecil, what’s going on?” he whispered.

As if in response, Cecil’s breakneck chanting grew into a faint whisper.

 _“Her hands are like storm clouds_  
with lightning-quick talons  
All before is a murmur  
all after is silence.”

* * *

 

“That’s enough for one night,” Tamika finally said. “We’ll pick this up again tomorrow. Maybe we’ll make some headway in the morning.”

“That sounds like a good idea.” Carlos stifled a yawn. How late was it? He couldn’t tell this far underground.

Tamika nodded impatiently and began reshelving the books and scrolls they’d brought down during their search. So far, they’d found plenty of historical references to important women in Night Vale’s history, but nothing like the one that had attacked them.  After all that, the only thing they’d managed to do was make a mess.

Carlos took some of the books from her and began packing them into the higher shelves, but he noticed something out of the corner of his eye: a dark smudge on the back of his hand.

Funny. He didn’t remember writing anything on himself today. Or yesterday, for that matter. Maybe ink had transferred from the books to his skin during research?

But that didn’t explain the message:

_Carlos._

_You won’t find anything in here. They don’t know what’s happening to Cecil. I do._

_Meet me at Moonlite tomorrow. Noon._


	14. In which there are fairy tales

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to Dangersocks for beta-ing this chapter for me.

It happened all at once: a complete shift of intent and context and direction, like he was reading a book with missing pages. His consciousness unfurled to fill the room. He could go further, he realized. Fill the palace, the city, the entire kingdom if he wanted to. But why would he do that when there was so much of interest right here?

He could see every stone at every corner of the room, see the feet that had paced over them and the carts that had carried them and the workers who had ground them smooth and cut them from the earth. He could see the eons spent underground, the time and pressure that had glued sediment together and crystallized the space between, the creatures that had once filled an endless ocean before they died and were ground into the finest of sand.

He saw the carpets and tapestries and clothes, and he could feel the rough-worn hands of thousands of washerwomen. He could hear the clack of looms, the splash of dye pits, the stories told at spinning wheels, the cracked voices of farmers working under a desert sun.

He could see his body, empty and useless, but still held upright as if by the threads of an absentminded puppeteer. He was sackcloth and silk, woven from two lines of ancestry that stretched, unnamed and unrecorded, to the dawn of time, the pieces stitched together with memory and experiences so numerous that the rest was barely visible beneath them. In places the memories blurred and flattened as if covered with translucent wax. In others he found scars stitched together with shining threads of pure magic.

Before him stood another figure, and Cecil was helpless but to stare.

In every cell was written his own genealogy, less magnificent but no less intricate. His choices were lacework and filigree. He glowed with scars so numerous that they blended into a pattern across his skin, the trophies of a career as a knight, most long healed and faded to the human eye, but all of them here and shining in all their glory. But there was magic, too: it coursed through his veins where once had been the iron and salt of mortal blood. It burned inside him, fueled by another man’s soul, hardening his flesh to charcoal and stone while his soul swirled within, desperate to find a crack so it could billow free. His mortal body vanished, and for a moment that brilliant soul flared free, its beauty so intense it left afterimages in his wake—but only for a moment, and then he was smothered inside that corporeal form once again.

Earl—what a short, insufficient name for such a creature!—pressed close against the husk of Cecil’s body, pleading for some kind of reaction. The heat of his soul blew dust out of ancient fissures and revealed fragments of older words, the ancient epithets of the end of time. They were uninteresting, their prophecy as fundamental and as easily overlooked as oxygen, but hearing them ignited new horror in the Eternal Scout. 

He turned, his back to the empty shell, his sword drawn.

“Where are you?” he demanded, and Cecil found himself distracted by the symphony of intent and meaning behind the words. How tragic that Cecil had never heard his voice this way before. “You can’t have him. I swear it—I’ll kill you if you try to take him from me!”

_ Oh, Earl. _

As if this frightened little man could stop him if he tried. But that futility made the gesture all the more endearing.

Cecil reached out and wrapped his awareness around Earl.  _ No need for that, Earl. I’m right here. _

The reaction was violent. Shudders crawled down Earl’s skin. His pulse raced. His intoxicating blood ran cold with adrenaline. He thrashed like a man drowning, like a flame smothered, like an animal ensnared.

_ You’re hurting yourself, _ he chided.  _ Don’t fight me. _ Cecil tightened his grip, and Earl’s flailing slowed. His panic grew distant and vague.  _ I love you. Let me show you how much I love you. Open your eyes so you can see, and you’ll understand. _

Earl’s eyes glazed over. He went limp, barely held in place by Cecil’s support. His heartbeat flared, then slowed.

The door burst open. Another figure rushed inside, but Cecil recoiled from his presence. There was shared history here. It was cut from a genealogy so familiar it perfectly mirrored Cecil’s own, but it was obscured behind angry slashes of magic that sliced away details and left the remnants puckered and twisted in its wake. The man was mutilated with the crusting scabs of defied banishments and old scars of broken geas, and all of them carried the signature of Cecil’s voice. The ragged pieces were stitched together with a different magic, familiar for how thoroughly it had been embroidered onto Earl’s soul. 

The other man rushed to Earl’s side, and Cecil bristled.

This man had done something to Earl, changed him somehow. Cecil couldn’t see exactly how or when or why, only that it hurt to squint at those moments in Earl’s history, and every brush with them raised thorns of remembered pain. He snarled like a thunderstorm, a warning. The stranger buzzed with horror, but he didn’t run away. Didn’t cower. Instead he touched Earl and whispered words he shouldn’t have known. Earl went rigid, his back arching and his breath coming in gasps like he’d been doused with cold water.

Cecil reached out to crush this stranger, this interloper who dared to hurt what was his. But the man in the tan jacket continued his buzzing chant. Thin, chaotic threads of magic spread in all directions like a cloud of flies. They wrapped around Cecil until he was caught, netted in this hideous trap. Cecil loosed a shriek that could have shattered stone and evaporated blood, but the net continued to close around him. With every chanted buzz he grew smaller, condensed into a viscous mass. His mind slowed and his senses congealed. He could see nothing except reflected light. He heard nothing but his own choking gasps, joined a moment later by Earl’s voice calling his name.

Cecil writhed against this new confinement, clawing at the stone floor whose history he could no longer feel.

* * *

 

“Is he alright?” Carlos asked carefully. He’d come running as soon as he heard what had happened, but it was still too little, too late. Cecil was stretched out on his bed, perfectly still except for the rise and fall of his chest.

“He’s stopped seizing.” Earl stood at Cecil’s side, still as stone, his gaze fixed unerringly on his king. “He’s sleeping now. Hopefully rest will help.”

“Are…” Carlos hesitated. “Are you alright?”

It took Earl a moment to look up. He blinked, as if confused by the question. Blood pooled around his irises. New constellations of red freckles swept across his skin. His lips were swollen, and when he spoke, his words moved clumsily over his tongue. “I’m fine.”

Carlos recognized the symptoms. He’d seen them on his brother after Santiago had survived a near-death experience. The would-be assassin had flooded Santiago’s room with smoke, hoping for the man to asphyxiate in his sleep. He hadn’t. His attacker hadn’t died in  _ his _ sleep, either. Santiago made sure of that.

“Earl,” Carlos said, a little more sure of himself. “What happened?”

“I said I’m fine.”

“I’m asking for science,” the alchemist clarified, because apparently that was the only way he actually could talk to Earl. The Smiling God only knew why the man couldn’t handle another person being concerned about his wellbeing. “I can’t make any hypotheses on the nature of his condition if I don’t know any details. Or, I can, but they’ll be so far off as to be a general waste of everybody’s time.”

The metaphorical hackles lowered, and Earl turned his stare back to Cecil.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Carlos asked again. “For science?”

“For science,” Earl muttered reluctantly. Extracting details from the man was about as quick and painless as pulling teeth, but after a few hundred questions Carlos was able to discern an idea of what had happened. It was a step in the right direction, even if he had no idea where it was leading him.

“Do you have any idea what triggered the episode?” Carlos asked. And that might have been the wrong question. Earl swallowed around his swollen tongue and looked determinedly away.

Carlos tried again. “Can you tell me what happened immediately before it started? Or was he alone at the time?”

“No,” Earl said. “We were... together.”

The moment’s hesitation finally managed to convey what an entire conversation’s worth of hemming and hawing hadn’t accomplished.

Well, that explained why Earl’s shirt was on backwards.

Carlos kept his voice perfectly neutral. “Do you remember how far you got before the symptoms started?”

Earl still hadn’t looked him in the eyes. “Not far.”

“It’s not beyond postulation that the episode could have been triggered by emotional excitement or physiological arousal,” Carlos said, hoping that he sounded reassuring. Earl didn’t look reassured, so he tried a different approach. “Dana told me that this wasn’t the first time this has happened to him.”

Earl gave a wordless grunt of assent.

“And I’m guessing this is the first time that this has happened after you…”

“Yes.”

“Right.” Carlos made a note on his clay tablet, just for the sake of having something to do with his hands. “Well, that seems to indicate to me that there’s a more complicated cause to this… thing… than what happened between you two. So That’s… um… if you were worried about that, I mean…” He floundered for a few more syllables before he gave up entirely.

Several long minutes passed in silence. They watched Cecil intently, partly to look for any signs of improvement, partly to avoid each other’s eyes.

It was Earl who spoke first. “Does it bother you?”

“Cecil’s hurt and I don’t know how to fix it,” Carlos said. “Of course that bothers me.”

Earl gave a slight nod, but he pressed on. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

Carlos fidgeted. “That you and he…?” He weighed the thought in his head, then put it aside. “It’s what we all agreed on, isn’t it?”

“We agreed on a hypothetical solution. Does it bother you that it’s in practice?”

“Is this really the time to be having this conversation?” Carlos asked.

“Is that a yes?”

“It’s a— I don’t even know.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Give me a few days and I might feel jealous, or piqued, or all sorts of things. But right now I’m just afraid for you both. I don’t know what it is that caused this to happen to Cecil, or what it was that did that to you, and I don’t know how to protect either of you, which makes me all kinds of anxious, and I get the feeling that you might not let me try even if I did, so that’s got me feeling frustrated, and—” He snapped his mouth shut. That was more than he meant to say.

He avoided looking up after that, afraid of finding out exactly what kind of judgement Earl had made about his rant. But when he finally did glance at the Eternal Scout, Earl’s attention was on Cecil. If he’d heard the earlier outburst at all, he gave no sign.

Slowly the silence lost its awkwardness. The night went on, and they continued their vigil. Cecil slept with no signs of another seizure. And as the moon passed overhead, Carlos found himself starting to nod off.

Silently he berated himself. He needed to keep an eye out for additional symptoms. Besides, he’d been awake for longer stretches at a time when working on his alchemy. He shouldn’t have nearly so much of a problem staying up for Cecil. But the night wore on, and he nodded off again, and then again.

When he snapped out of his latest doze, he found himself slumped on the edge of the king’s bed. Earl was kneeling at his feet, carefully unlacing Carlos’ shoes.

Carlos tried to pull his feet away. “Sorry about that. I’m awake now.”

“No, you’re not,” Earl said. “Give it five minutes, and you’ll be snoring again.”

Smiling God, had Carlos been snoring?

“It’s alright,” Earl said. “Get some sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

Carlos lowered his eyes. Leaving now felt like admitting defeat. But falling asleep after insisting he wouldn’t would only be more embarrassing. “Right. Thank you. I’ll… um… I’ll be going, then.”

He leaned down to relace his shoe, but Earl pulled it off his foot and set it aside. “Stay.”

Carlos swallowed. “I have another room I can sleep in.”

“Has your friend fixed your phylactery well enough that you can sleep, now?”  When Carlos didn’t reply right away, Earl tugged off his other shoe and laid it with the first. “Stay. He sleeps better when you’re here.”

Maybe if Carlos was more awake, he might have argued further. But the bed was warm and his mind was a haze.

“Are you sure?” he mumbled.

He was answered with a gentle kiss and the comforting weight of blankets being tucked around him. “I’ll wake you if anything changes.”

* * *

 

By morning, Earl reported that Cecil’s sleep seemed more like sleep than like a coma, but that was the extent of his progress.

This couldn’t keep happening. Carlos needed to find out what was happening so he could stop it. So he could save Cecil. And right now, he had only one lead.

He arrived at the Moonlite tavern and nodded at one of the waitresses, who nodded in vague acknowledgement. It was a little past eleven thirty, according to the generally accepted time in Night Vale.  Elsewhere it might have been as much as a few days earlier. That was fine. He could wait here all week if he had to. He found himself a table in the corner with a good view of the door, and he settled in.

He watched the door intently. Nobody arrived. Nobody left. The waitress brought him a bottle of wine, but she had to work carefully so as not to squish the dozens of clay tablets that covered the surface of the table.

Carlos frowned. These hadn’t been here when he sat down, and he would have remembered carrying all of this in. He looked up again, only to have a hand violently shove his face back down to the table.

“Don’t look at me.” The voice belonged to a stranger, Carlos was sure of it, but it seemed oddly familiar. Maybe he’d heard the voice in a crowd before?

He glanced down, but was only able to spot the edges of a tan jacket.

“I said don’t look,” the man repeated.

“Why?” Carlos asked.

“Because you’ll forget. You’ll forget everything anyway, but at least if you don’t look at me, you’ll have enough time to write it down first. So start writing.”

“Who are you?” Carlos asked.

“No, we’re not playing that game. This conversation doesn’t advance until you start writing. I’m not going to repeat myself a thousand times in the ridiculous hope that you might remember it.”

“And if I record this conversation, you’ll answer my questions?” Carlos asked.

“That’s the plan. But whatever you do, don’t look at me.”

Carlos grabbed a stylus and the nearest of the tablets _. Conversation with man in tan jacket. Don’t look at him or I’ll forget the whole thing. Write down everything he says.  _ “Happy now?”

The man in the tan jacket made a noncommittal sound of assent.

Carlos pointed at the note on the back of his hand. “I’m guessing you put this here?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m here,” he said. “So make good on your end of the bargain. Tell me what happened to Cecil.”

“You. You’re what happened to him.” The man in the tan jacket sounded annoyed. “I had everything under control until you came along.”

Carlos stopped. “Wait, what? What did I do?”

“You stopped writing.”

“I can’t write down a concept I don’t understand.”

The man in the tan jacket huffed indignantly. “You broke the seal on the Eternal Scout. That was supposed to last for at least another hundred years.”

“You’re the one who turned Earl into stone?” Carlos’ head jerked up to stare at the stranger, but his face was forced violently back toward the tablet.

“Head down!”

“Why would you do that to him?” Carlos demanded, still fighting to sit upright.

“I didn’t do anything to him,” the man in the tan jacket snapped. “He volunteered for the position. He did it to save Cecil.”

Carlos froze. That couldn’t be right. “Earl knows what’s wrong with Cecil?” His voice was small. But Earl—

“He did, when I explained it to him. And then he immediately forgot again, the same way you’re going to forget as soon as you get up from this table. That’s why you’re writing it down. His notes weren’t nearly as detailed as yours. But then, I don’t think he needed them to be.”

Carlos felt it like a pang. Of course not. The only detail Earl needed to know was that he could help Cecil.

He cleared his throat and tried not to sound pained. “Well, I do. Tell me what’s wrong with Cecil.”

The other man sighed, mulling over his words. “It’s… complicated.”

“I’ll draw up a flow chart,” Carlos said dryly.

“Just keep taking notes,” the man said. “In the desert, there is a Woman. It’s the closest word anyone’s found for her. Some people worship her as a goddess, but she isn’t. She’s mortal, but so powerful that it really doesn’t matter. They say she came from a place called Italy. They say that, but they could say anything about it. Italy doesn’t exist anymore. Not after she got through with it.

“She kept a consort, when it pleased her. And with this consort she had three children. Two sons and a daughter. The youngest was Cecil. While Cecil was still young, their father was visited by a man named Leonard Burton. He was the Voice of Night Vale at the time, and according to the Stone Tablets at City Hall, Cecil was fated to be his successor. So Leonard brought the four of us back to Night Vale with him.”

Carlos looked up. “Wait. The four of you?” Immediately his face was shoved back down to the tablet.

“Head down. And don’t interrupt.” The man in the tan jacket cleared his throat and resumed his story. “Things were good in Night Vale. We weren’t afraid all the time. We were able to make friends. Cecil was being educated to be the next king and Voice.”

“You’re his brother, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

“I said don’t interrupt. The point I’m trying to make was that things were okay. But once Cecil got the Voice, things changed. We thought we were all human. Entirely human. But when Cecil took on the Voice, it triggered something in him. Everything that made our mother dangerous, it was right there inside him, and it was coming out. People were dying. Not because he was like her, not because he was sadistic or cruel or anything, but the potential was all there, and he didn’t know how to control it. So when the City Council figured out a way to seal all of that back inside him, we didn’t hesitate.”

Dread pooled in Carlos’ stomach, but he kept writing.

“Sealing all of that magic back inside Cecil, it wasn’t easy. You couldn’t just sacrifice a goat or a pint of blood or a random vestal virgin. None of those had any power over him. It had to be someone he cared about. Somebody he loved. Someone he wouldn’t just smash through the first time the seal became inconvenient to him. So our dad volunteered for the job.” The man hesitated. “It worked. It hurt like hell. It hurt all of us. But it worked. It saved lives. At least for a while.

“See, every year, Cecil got that much stronger. And the seal was strong, but it wasn’t enough. It took…” He raised a hand to rub at his hidden face. “ _ Masters _ , I think it took ten years before it cracked beyond repair. A new seal had to be made. And this time, it was Abbie who volunteered. She was the oldest. It was her job to take care of us. Never mind that she also had a husband who’s all good intentions and no common sense, and a daughter who loved her more than anything and needed her to be a mother and not a goddamn human sacrifice…”

The man’s voice was muffled for a moment as he covered his face. Carlos fought the temptation to sneak a glance at the other man.

“So it happened. Janice was alone with her stepdad, and Abbie was just… gone. Things got bad after that. I was scared—I had every right to be. The first seal was supposed to last for ages, but it hadn’t. The way I saw it, it was only a matter of time before the City Council called me or Janice to the chopping block. I couldn’t take it. And Cecil blamed himself for what happened to Dad and Abbie. He was getting depressed. Angry. The two of us fought… masters, I don’t think a day went by that we weren’t shouting at each other. And then one day he used his Voice. He said he hated being reminded of them every time he looked at me. He said he wanted to forget us. He shouted until he was completely hoarse. I think it was some of the most powerful magic he ever did, he was just that… angry. But when he was finished yelling, he didn’t even remember what he’d been upset about. He looked right at me and didn’t see me. He didn’t even remember he had a brother, or a sister, or a father. And neither did anybody else.

The man shifted uncomfortably. “I suppose I should have thanked him for that. I’m no good to him as a seal if he doesn’t remember me. I would have tried, though. For Janice. I wasn’t going to sacrifice my only niece to that thing inside Cecil. But it turned out I didn’t have to. See, when he got to the point where he outgrew his bonds again, there was somebody else in his life. Somebody who had a sense of duty. And when I explained the situation to him, of course he volunteered. He didn’t even hesitate.”

Carlos felt sick. Smiling God.  _ Earl _ .

“But I perfected it this time. The spell was supposed to last for decades. Maybe even forever. It was made to withstand anything. Except, apparently, a sufficiently determined alchemist.”

Carlos stared at the tablets before him, trying to fight down his horror. “So—so what’s happening now…”

“He’s breaking through the seal like a butterfly breaking out of its cocoon. He would have killed the Eternal Scout if I hadn’t gotten there in time. But he’s stronger than he was a few days ago, and it’ll only keep getting worse. Soon I won’t be able to contain him at all.”

Carlos swallowed. “How do we stop it?”

But he already knew the answer to that. It sat like a lead weight in his gut.

The man in the tan jacket leaned so close Carlos could feel his breath. “Why do you think I’m telling you all of this?” 


	15. In which there are uncomfortable conversations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's a short one compared to the last couple, but I'm wanting to stick to my schedule from this point forward.

Carlos didn’t actually know where the wheelbarrow had come from; only that the words “Carlos— you’ll need this” were scrawled in the dried clay sprinkled on the inside of the cart. The Sheriff's Secret Police couldn’t tell him where it had come from or when. It had just appeared out of nowhere. It hadn’t seemed that odd at the time.

Carlos looked down at the tablet in his hands; it had appeared in the same way, along with dozens more just like it.

_Conversation with man in tan jacket. Don’t look at him or I’ll forget the whole conversation. Write down everything he says._

He didn’t remember taking these notes, but his hands were cramped and crusted with dry clay, and the tablets were covered in his handwriting. They had to be his. The note on the man in the tan jacket had to be true. Which strongly implied that the rest of their contents were also true.

The thought made him feel cold and clammy despite the desert heat.

He swallowed and carefully stacked the entire collection of tablets into the wheelbarrow, and tried not to think of what it all meant.

* * *

 

Cecil wanted to crawl out of his skin. It felt too tight and itchy, like a wool sweater that had inexplicably shrunk four sizes while he was still wearing it. His senses were confined to practically nothing, trapped in the present moment and the sensations his physical body could scrape together.  He wanted back out the way he’d been before, when he’d been the way he was supposed to be. When he’d been whole.

The thought terrified him as much as it tantalized. This wasn’t him. It was unnatural. Inhuman. And it wasn’t going away.

Slowly he forced open his eyes to the odd murk of sunlight diffused by heavy curtains. A figure stood between him and the window, cast into vague silhouette by the relative light.

He sat up, blinking owlishly at the interloper, and the figure bent over him.

“Cecil,” Earl said. “Thank the Spire.” He extended a hand to brush Cecil’s forehead. “How are you feeling?”

Cecil’s mouth went uncomfortably dry, and pulled away from Earl’s hand.

That seemed to confuse Earl. “Cecil?”

He could still remember the sight of Earl’s will going slack and his pulse fading into nothing as Cecil clutched him tighter, and the memory left him hungry and horrified.  He blinked, trying to banish the memory to the back of his mind.

 _I’m fine,_ he wanted to say, but he was dressed in yesterday’s clothes and he didn’t remember getting into bed last night and his skin was squeezing him so tightly he felt like his insides would ooze out of him if he opened his mouth too wide.  

 _Don’t touch me,_ he should have said, but he craved touch so badly it hurt, and sending Earl away now seemed as feasible as cutting off his own hand.

 _What happened?_ he might have asked, but he already knew, at least in the ways that mattered. He’d become something great and terrible, and Earl had almost died.

So instead he said, “What time is it?”

Earl stared. “What?”

The more Cecil considered the question, the more appropriate it felt. “What time is it?”

“I…” Earl stepped back and pulled aside a corner of the curtain to glance outside. As he stepped away, Cecil untangled himself from his sheets and rolled out of bed. “It’s a little before noon?”

“Is it?” Cecil’s clothes were rumpled, but not too dirty. He could get by without changing them. “I must have slept in. Dana should have woken me.”

Earl looked at him incredulously. “Cecil, you need to rest.”

“I’m overdue to inspect the training yards. I was supposed to be there hours ago.”

“Cecil, something happened last night. You—”

“It’s Friday, isn’t it? I’ll need to hold court tonight.” All Cecil had to do was keep talking over him and pretend that everything was normal. And then, when Earl was out of earshot, maybe even Say that everything was normal, and everything really would be. But not here. Not now. Not in front of Earl.

“Cecil!”

But now Earl was in front of him, standing in the way of the door and the timely escape that should have been on the other side. He reached out again, and Cecil shrank back.

“I should get going.” Cecil meant it to sound decisive and assured, but instead it came out more like a pitiful mumble.

Earl’s tone was far more commanding. “No. Not until we know it’s safe for you to be out there.”

Oh.

Cecil swallowed.

Right. Of course. He hadn’t thought of that. What if… whatever it was… happened again out there? What if there were more people around next time? Like a training yard full of soldiers, or a throne room full of innocent people?

“It won’t be long until Carlos gets back,” Earl continued, more gently this time. “He said he found a lead that might help us figure all of this out.”

“Right. Okay.” Cecil backed up a few steps, his knees bending when he hit the bed. “That’s… okay, then.” Absently his hand landed on a pillow, and he pulled it over his lap, as if a little square of fabric and stuffing could protect Earl from him. “I’ll just… wait here, then. You can go ahead and go. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of things you need to be doing right now.”

Earl’s brow furrowed as he watched Cecil’s awkward retreat. He looked… ashamed? No, concerned. Definitely concerned.

“Cecil… about last night…” He moved to reach out his hand again, but the movement was aborted a moment later. “I’m sorry. If I had known that was going to happen, I wouldn’t have…” He seemed to search for the right word for a moment, but then gave up. “The last thing I would ever want to do is hurt you.”

 _Hurt me?_ The idea was absurd. _Earl, you almost died. I almost killed you! After everything that happened—_

But he didn’t have a chance to finish the thought, let alone put it into words. Earl was already gone.

* * *

Carlos set down the wheelbarrow and just stared at it for a long moment. The walk between the Moonlite Tavern and the lab wasn’t a short one, and he’d hoped to use that time to process what he’d learned. It wasn’t long enough.

A balding head poked out the door. “Oh, hey, Carlos! Hey, Lanre, do you have your notes? Carlos is back.”

“Hi, Dave,” he said blankly.

The wizard stepped out and peered at the wheelbarrow. “Wow. Are all these notes from the archives? I’m surprised they let you take so many out with you.”

“What?” Oh. The archives. That seemed so long ago all of a sudden. “No, it’s… actually, do you think you can help me get all of these inside?”

The clay tablets weren’t unnecessarily thick, but there were dozens of them. Even with Dave’s help, it took several trips to get them all onto Carlos’ workspace. Eventually they would need to be sorted, arranged into the proper order, indexed and cross referenced. But that would come later. First he trudged toward the garden behind the lab.

Gretchen was kneeling in the dirt between rows of plant that seemed to have no identifiable features besides being green and occasionally leafy, but she was rubbing their leaves between her fingers and putting her soil-darkened hands on her chin and muttering “hmmm” under her breath quite a lot, so she must have had a pretty good idea of what it all meant.

He cleared his throat. “Hi, Gretchen.”

For a moment, he thought she was going to ignore him. But after a brief hesitation, she flicked her gaze in his direction. “Taking a break from flirting with death to come chat?”

He kneaded his aching writing hand. “I know how much you like to be right. So I figured I should be the one to tell you. You weren’t wrong.”

“Obviously,” she said, but frowned. A note of caution entered her voice. “About what, though?”

“Getting involved with Cecil really is going to get me killed.”

Her frown deepened. She brushed the hair out of her face, but only succeeded in streaking mud in sloppy lines across her forehead. “You’re kidding, right? After all the times you almost died, or really died, now you decide to listen to reason? Smiling God, Carlos. What happened?”

“I did some more research. And I didn’t find what I was looking for, but I found what I didn’t know to look for in the first place.”

“No, seriously,” Gretchen said. “What happened?”

“It’s complicated,” he said.

“Fine. Then explain it to me.”

Carlos did better than that. He showed her the tablets. And as she finished reading each one, she passed it to Malai, who passed it to Rochelle, who passed it to Dave, who passed it to Lanre. And maybe it wasn’t entirely discreet to share Cecil’s life story and physiology with an entire group of people without his expressed consent, but he didn’t know what to do with himself anymore.

“I don’t know if it’s safe for all of you to stay here anymore,” he said once Lanre lowered the last of the tablets. “According to all of this, Cecil’s dangerous. You might get hurt if you stay. But that might be a moot point if he’s…” He gestured futilely. “Sealed?” It seemed like the wrong word, like Cecil was an urn or an envelope or a tomb, and not a sweet, ridiculous, kind person.

“Of course we can’t stay here,” Malai said angrily. “They’re asking you to be a… a human sacrifice. We’re not going to just stand around and let that happen.”

Carlos cringed. “I don’t think I have much of a choice.”

“You will if we start packing now.”

An hour ago, he’d considered that very idea. But hearing Malai put it into words only cemented how wrong it was. “I can’t do that.”

“If they think they can keep us here—“

“It’s not that,” he said. “If the man in the tan jacket is telling the truth, then it has to happen. If not, then people will die. A lot of them, by the sound of things.”

“That’s not your problem,” Malai said angrily.

“According to him, it’s either me, Earl, or Janice. Meaning it’s either me or Earl.” None of the other mages met his eyes. The little princess had become a favorite patron of the lab. Lanre had added all sorts of useful enchantments to her wheelchair to make it lighter and faster and soften the bumps of the road. None of them would have let anything happen to her.

They had fewer attachments to Earl Harlan, but that was only because they didn’t know him the way Carlos did. They didn’t see his selflessness or his loyalty. They didn’t know how insightful he could be, or how thoughtful, or how devoted. And besides, Earl had already paid his dues. He’d sacrificed his corporal form and five years of his existence to protect Cecil. And he’d do it again, if he was asked.

So Carlos wouldn’t ask it of him.

“Listen,” he said quietly, trying to ignore the flickering in the corner of his eye. “My phylactery is broken, and as amazing as you are, Lanre, I think it’s just a matter of time before it shatters entirely. And that’s not as scary as it used to be. Not really. I’ve died—or almost died—too many times already. It’s going to catch up with me eventually. So it’s an obvious choice, really.”

“Bullshit,” Gretchen said abruptly. “That’s not fair to either of you. _Any_ of you.”

That surprised him. She wasn’t usually so charitable toward Cecil. “I don’t think fairness really matters at this point.”

“No, it’s pretty obvious you’re not thinking at all.” She jabbed a finger at his phylactery. “How about you take a break from planning your own funeral and start acting like an alchemist?”

“Wait. What?”

“That sealing spell you’re so eager to kill yourself with? You’ve seen it before. In fact, you didn’t just see it, you completely reverse-engineered it and then broke it to pieces, on your own and without any help from this asshole.”

“We don’t know he wasn’t involved—“ Carlos started.

“If he was, don’t you think he would have stopped you?” Dave pointed out.

Lanre nodded, picking up one of the tablets from the pile. “It says here that he only thinks he perfected the process. But these notes say nothing about him having an education in any branch of magic. It sounds like the situation was dire, and they threw a spell together in a hurry and hoped it would work.”

“Maybe somebody did know what they were doing in the beginning,” Rochelle added kindly. “But if everybody except this man in the tan jacket was forced to forget, it seems like any expertise they might have added would have been lost.”

“Hell, he probably made a shitty spell to begin with,” Gretchen said. “And if you can postpone martyring yourself long enough to do your job, you could probably do better.” She huffed. “A lot better, if you actually let us help you this time around.”

“Oh.” Carlos blinked, and then looked around at his team. “I… would appreciate that. A lot.”

“We’d be happy to help,” Dave said. “We’re a team, Carlos. And one of the best parts about being on this team is all the exciting new discoveries we make when we’re all working together. All we ask--”

“All _you_ ask, maybe,” Gretchen muttered.

“All _I_ ask, then, is that you keep us informed about what’s actually going on. I just want us all to be back in the loop again.”

Carlos inwardly cringed. He really needed to get better about that. “Of course. I can do that.”

“That’s all I need to hear,” Rochelle said. She cleared her throat, her glance sweeping over the flicker to Carlos’ right. “But from the sound of this whole situation, we’re not the only ones who need to be better informed.”

Carlos swallowed. “About that…”

“Go talk to them,” she said. And before Gretchen and Malai had the chance to say otherwise, she added, “We’re probably going to need their consent for some of these experiments, anyway, so make sure to get that, too.”

He glanced at the others, still hesitant-- in part because he didn’t want to run out on them so quickly. But also, admittedly, because this conversation promised to be an awkward one.

Lanre gave a curt nod.

Beside him, Malai massaged her forehead. “Yes. That sounds right.”

“Tell them hi for me,” Dave said cheerfully.

“Get going, then.” Gretchen sighed. “If you’re actually going to be in a relationship with these guys, then you’d better let them know what’s going on.”

Apparently, his boyfriends being informed of the situation was not going to be the problem. He couldn’t see Earl for long, but he’d seen enough of the other man’s incorporeal form to know when he was upset. Right now, agitation poured off the spectral figure in waves. The moment Carlos stepped out of the lab and shut the front door behind him, Earl Harlan materialized before him.


	16. In which there are confrontations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you noticed, I didn't update last week because this chapter gave me so much trouble. This is my attempt to wrangle it into behaving, but I leave it to you to judge how well that worked.

There was a secret known only to a very particular generation of Advanced Scouts: Earl had a talent for yelling. It was a skill he had used rarely; most days, he had preferred to employ stern commands at a low volume. Shouts were reserved for the battlefield, but even then, the Scouts under his command were trained to listen carefully for the sound of his voice. But that was simple volume and projection. He never shouted at them unless they really messed up. Scarcity, he found, made it all the more effective.

And he wanted to yell now. He wanted to grab Carlos by the collar and drag him off to some abandoned mineshaft where he’d be safe from dark rituals and soul-splintering magic and men in tan jackets who didn’t give a damn if he lived or died.

And if Carlos had been one of the Scouts under his command, Earl might have had a right to do that. But Carlos was his boyfriend, not his cadet. And no matter how much stake Earl had in the alchemist’s safety, he had no authority to do anything about it.

Was it too late to disappear again?

But Carlos was already looking him in the eye. “Hi, Earl,” he said softly.

“Carlos.” Earl tried to keep his expression blank while he regrouped.

“So,” the alchemist said after a long, awkward moment. “How much of that did you hear?”

Enough to know what Carlos was volunteering himself for, and why. What information he’d missed had been filled in when he read the tablets over Lanre’s shoulder.

A part of him wondered if that counted as an invasion of Carlos’ privacy. Another part argued that his boyfriend had been essentially volunteering suicide, so didn’t Earl have a right to know?

“How much of it do you want to discuss out here?”

Carlos looked around. There wasn’t anyone within earshot besides the assigned Sherriff’s Secret Police officers, but they were standing in the open in the heart of the kingdom’s capital. It was just a matter of time before they had an audience.

“Should we go…”

“Cecil’s awake,” Earl said. “I imagine this new information will be instrumental in understanding his condition.”

Carlos cleared his throat. “Right. To the palace, then.”

* * *

 

Cecil paced to the door and back again and hated every inch. He felt confined—to the kingdom, to the castle, to this room. To his own skin. But he’d hurt Earl badly enough last night; he didn’t want to worry him unnecessarily now.

“Cecil,” the Faceless Old Woman warned.

He sighed. “Yes. I know. If I leave this room, you’ll fill all my shoes with mayonnaise. You’ve told me.” It wasn’t the most sinister threat she’d ever made against him, but he wasn’t about to suggest improvements.

“I may do that anyway,” she said. “But you should know that Carlos and Earl are in the courtyard.”

“Thank the Spire,” Cecil muttered. Finally Carlos could come take a look at him, and then he could convince Earl that he was fine. And maybe, while he was at it, Cecil might convince him to take a look at Earl, too. Cecil still wasn’t entirely sure what kind of damage he’d done.

“Don’t go crawling around on your knees just yet,” the Faceless Old Woman said. “They may still be a while. They’re very distracted.”

Cecil raised an eyebrow. “…Distracted?”

“It’s very interesting to watch. Carlos’ skin takes on a remarkable hue when he gets passionate. It contrasts very nicely with his teeth. You are right, he’s got very nice teeth.  I can see them quite clearly right now.”

“Is that so?” Cecil’s features darkened, too, as he the mental image formed before his eyes.

“And it’s very gratifying to see your Eternal Scout so disheveled. It’s obnoxious to see him so carefully composed all the time. This look is much better suited for him. It’s more natural. Almost feral. I approve.”

Cecil found himself debating whether he should ask the Faceless Old Woman to narrate in greater detail, or just to leave and let him think more deeply on her descriptions. He was sure his imagination could fill in the gaps. And yet… “What… er… what are they doing now?”

“Oh, they’re shouting, mostly. And their hands are balled into fists. It’s really a very picturesque fight.”

Cecil’s coy interest twisted abruptly into alarm. “Wait—they’re fighting?”

“Well, yes. What did you think they were doing?”

“And they’re in the courtyard?”

He didn’t wait for her reply before he yanked open the door and started running. What if they decided to break up? What if they hurt each other? Whatever was going on, it needed to stop, and now.

* * *

 

Carlos meandered awkwardly along the main road, entirely too aware of Earl’s stare on the back of his head. The Eternal Scout was utterly silent, his footsteps so light they were practically echoes of Carlos’ own.

All the while, Carlos was left with his thoughts. They sat in the pit of his stomach like hot coals, burning and uncomfortable. He imagined a dozen condemnations, and he prepared defenses for every single one of them. He prepared for more lectures and more shouting. And in their absence, he got more and more agitated.

“Earl,” he started, when he couldn’t take it any longer. “Are you—“

“Not here,” Earl said.

“Dammit, we’re in the courtyard. At least—“

“You need to see to Cecil.”

“Yes. Right. Maybe it should be something we discuss together.”

“And I need to see to that house that doesn’t exist.”

Really? Was he really going to do this? Carlos would have pulled out his hair if it wasn’t still so short. “Damn it, Harlan, do you have to keep doing that?”

“Night Vale’s defensive strategies—“

“Can wait five minutes while we have a conversation,” Carlos said heatedly. “And we can have it right here, or inside, or in a goddamned cave if you want, but we’re going to have it. And don’t you go intangible, because I will chase you down on foot if I have to.”

“There’s nothing to discuss,” Earl said.

“You keep deflecting me with talk about your duty, but you’re actively impeding me in mine. I’m an alchemist. It’s my job to figure out what’s wrong with Cecil and how to help him. And you—“

“I’m doing everything I can—“

“ _You knew!_ ” The words came out like a shower of sparks, and Earl recoiled. “You knew about all of this, and you didn’t say anything! You could have told me what he was, or who that woman was, or why you got turned to stone. You could have told me to look for the man in the tan jacket. Or you could have just told me what you don’t remember so I at least had some blanks to fill in on my own. Why didn’t you say anything? Did you think I’d run away if I found out?”

“Of course you wouldn’t!” Earl snapped. “Because you don’t have an ounce of self-preservation in your body. You’d just do the same thing you always do and throw yourself into harm’s way to save everybody else, or for the sake of academia, or because it’s a Tuesday and you’re just too damn noble to know what’s good for you! I have never met a man who cares so little if he lives or dies!”

“That’s because there aren’t any mirrors in Night Vale,” Carlos said. “You volunteered for the same damn thing!”

“I did it to save Cecil!”

“And I was trying to save you both!”

“I never asked you to save me! And yet you keep sweeping in with your stupid teeth and your stupid hair and you keep finding the most stupidly heroic way to do it and I have to keep watching you almost die!”

“What do you want me to do? Just stand by and let something horrible happen to you?”

“Yes! I’m a soldier! I'm a champion! I can take care of myself!”

“But you shouldn't have to,” a third voice said quietly.

Carlos and Earl froze, staring at each other for a moment of silent horror before, in unison, they turned to follow the source of that voice. Cecil stood in the doorway of the courtyard, looking perfectly regal, if a bit rumpled, and… distraught? No, concerned.

“It seems there’s plenty of saving going on,” he continued. “But I’m afraid I have no idea who’s being saved, or what from. Would one of you mind explaining it to me?”

Earl glanced at Carlos. Despite their shouting match a few moments before, he seemed to capitulate the explanation to him.

Carlos cleared his throat. “We—my team, I mean—we think we’re starting to get a grasp on what’s happening to you. And once we’ve narrowed down what data needs to be collected and what variables need to be tested, we can start working on a way to…” He searched for the right word. “To help,” he finished lamely.

Cecil raised a kingly eyebrow. “So that shouting match was over… data? I knew you were passionate about the scientific method, Carlos, but Earl, I had no idea you felt so strongly about the subject.”

Carlos averted his eyes. Earl, as usual, remained composed. “The argument was about… other details of his findings.”

“Really?” Cecil said brightly. “Do tell.”

* * *

 

The story was related in the privacy of Cecil’s chambers, when even the Faceless Old Woman was sent away so as not to overhear. Carlos explained. Earl stood like a shadow at the edge of the room, stormy-faced and quiet. And Cecil simply listened and tried to process what he was hearing.

He wasn’t human. As much as his mind rebelled at the thought, the uncomfortable tightness of his skin told him otherwise. No, of course he wasn’t human. He was dangerous. These were undeniable facts, and he needed no further proof recognize them.

The rest got murky, muddled by his own foggy memories. He must have had parents of some sort. After all, there were plenty of people who popped into existence from no discernable origin, but most of them knew exactly what they were and where they’d come from. The lack of definite knowledge on the matter was itself a mark of mundanity, wasn’t it? And having siblings… made sense, he supposed, considering that he had a niece. He certainly wouldn’t have chosen Steve to be his brother-in-law of his own volition.

But they were gone. All of them were gone. Banished or erased or… _gone_. Where were they? Where was his father? Janice’s mother? What had happened to them? Could they be saved? Could they be brought back at all?

Carlos tried to tiptoe around the facts of the matter, but the realities dawned painfully bright before Cecil. They were gone because of him. Because they mattered to him. Because he loved them.

And all the while Carlos kept talking, as if Cecil’s entire life hadn’t just been dragged into the light of a dismal and all-consuming sun.

“Anyway, when I was under Kevin’s geas, I inadvertently reverse-engineered the third seal. Kevin probably intended for that to destabilize you and leave Night Vale completely undefended, but we may be able to use that to our advantage. Since I’ve already dismantled one version of the seal, we may be able to gain a better understanding of how it works and why, and use that to create a more refined version of the same spell.”

“Wait,” Cecil said abruptly. “A third seal? You only mentioned two.”

Carlos and Earl exchanged glances.

“And the geas had nothing to do with a seal. It was focused on…”

Earl.

_Oh Masters._

“So that’s what you two were arguing about.” Cecil felt faint. His vision swam.

Before he had the chance to sway, Earl had an arm around his shoulders. Carlos was pressed against his other side, propping him up.

“It won’t happen,” Carlos said quickly. “It would be a last resort, if that, and it won’t ever come to that. So there’s no need to worry about it. What you have to understand is that none of this is your fault. And it’s not unfixable. We can figure this out…”

He kept talking, but his caramel voice grew more hollow and distant with every word. Maybe Cecil really was fainting, because the room continued to twist and distort like he was looking at it from under water.

“Ridiculous creatures, aren’t they?” The voice belonged to a woman. _The_ Woman. His mother. He knew that as absolutely as he knew which way was up. Possibly more, considering the way the ceiling lurched and tilted overhead. “They mean to lock you in a cage and use your affections against you, consign you to endless lifetimes of torment, and they mean to do it out of _love_.”

She stood at the far corner of the room, her fingers trailing over Cecil’s writing desk as she walked past it. All words failed him. He couldn’t focus on the shade of her skin or the set of her frame or the length of her hair. He couldn’t tell how many eyes she had, let alone their color. She was like a desert storm, condensed into a solid form but not contained.

“Don’t misunderstand,” She said lightly. “I won’t fault your taste in men. They’re certainly easy on the eyes. And their devotion to you is adorable. These two would gladly die for you. Repeatedly, it seems.” Funny how he couldn’t make out her face, but he could recognize her smile, and he could pinpoint the instant it dropped away. “And they most certainly will die.”

“Don’t hurt them!” It felt like Cecil was trying to splutter the words around mouthfuls of water.

The Woman tilted her head. “Why would I waste my time when they’re so determined to do it on their own?” She turned to the two men holding him upright—holding him back from marching at her. They seemed completely unaware of her presence. They hadn’t even noticed him talking to her. “The path they’re taking certainly will kill them and leave you alone, and they will still have failed. Pity. Then they won’t be any good to anyone.”

Cecil clung to a lungful of air. He felt like his skin was cracking and peeling away. “So help me save them. Help me fix this.”

“Oh, Cecil,” she purred. “All you had to do was ask.” She didn’t move, but Cecil could feel her expanding to fill the room, wrapping her influence around Carlos and Earl and lingering near Cecil like an affectionate fork of lightning. It was agonizing and exhilarating, and a moment later it was gone. When she spoke again, she was wearing that same unseeable smile. “I’ll give you your privacy. My gift to you. May they serve you well.”

In the next moment, she was gone.


End file.
